Good Riddance: The Call Is Coming from Inside the House

A search for home care help, the terrors of telemarketer culture, and a nice lady named Anne.

Welcome back to Good Riddance, where we gather in the comments below to share something we’re letting go of, however big or small.

This past week I had a long phone conversation with an older relative of mine who's been taking care of her partner full time for a long time. Anyone who has taken on this role knows what an important but exhausting endeavor it can be. So when she called and told me she was ready to look into possibly getting some help from a home care professional, I quickly agreed and gently told her I felt it was long overdue.

I offered to help her look into potential options and got to work emailing a couple friends for recommendations and Googling companies in their area. I instantly noticed that so many of these companies had very similar websites that felt like they were agencies representing individual home care professionals, and that I might be put through the ringer of negotiations and hidden fees in order to actually find the right person at the end of what would no doubt be a long process.

As I began to fill out the form on one of the websites—which was ominously the exact same form on all the other home care websites too—I started to get a sense that conducting my search in this way was not a good idea, and yet, dear reader, I continued. Even as I typed in my email address and then my phone number, a voice screamed in the back of my mind, like a person watching a horror movie yelling at the screen, begging the main character (me) not to venture into the creepy attic, the door of which just flung open oh-so-mysteriously. You idiot!!!!

I hit “continue” on the online form but never got to finish filling it out as I had to leave for a meeting. Within minutes, I learned who was in the attic ready to kill—err, call me non-stop like a telemarketer…and call me non-stop, they did.

The first company that rang my phone was called A Place For Mom, which sounds more like a Jordan Peele horror film than, well, a place for a mom. I couldn’t answer it right then, so I let it go to voicemail. An hour later, a company named Aging Care called. Then half an hour later, another company. And another. And another. Within 24 hours, I had eighteen missed calls from six different companies wanting to follow up on the form I had not completed or submitted, but had foolishly typed my contact information into on one single website.

On the nineteenth call, my hand shook as I slowly reached for the phone, a bead of sweat dripping down my forehead, and answered it whispering in terror, “…What do you people want from me?!” (I did not whisper this, I said “Hello.”) The very kind woman on the other end of the line told me her name was Anne and she had seen my half-filled-out form and was calling to offer her assistance completing it. All the stress from these calls quickly evaporated when I heard her sincere tone. Oh, I thought. This person is a real person! Trying to help! Not spamming me! I spoke to Anne and we made a plan to discuss some options with my relative in the near future.

Me in the 2002 movie The Ring. (And also me picking up my phone after hearing it ring for the nineteenth time in one day.)

This week I’m saying good riddance to what telemarketers and scammers have done to our relationship with our phones and phone calls: making us fear that every repeat call or unknown number is from someone trying to take advantage of us and never from someone trying to help, because, well, the latter feels like a pretty rare occurrence nowadays. I’m also saying goodbye (or rather “Block number”) to those very companies that do actively take advantage—who buy and sell our personal information or call under false pretenses or with scheme at the ready for the next person who does not immediately hit “Decline call.” So, many thanks to Anne for following up and actually making this whole process easier, proving that not every missed call or unknown number is from someone who desperately needs to tell you about your car’s extended warranty.

What’s in your dark murderous attic that you need to let go of? Let me know in the comments.

• A special shoutout to community member

  Alison McMillan Perry
  (Hi Alison!) who won our AWP Awards Reception ticket and who joined me at the event last week as I hosted the evening’s program. We had a great time (as you can tell), and she even came to the poetry reading I did with Derrick C. Brown the following night!

• For your calendars: Our next edition of The Short and Sweet, our monthly creative and cathartic get together live over Zoom for paid subscribers will take place on Sunday, April 27 from 1pm-2pm ET. April is National Poetry Month, and to celebrate, I’ve asked the brilliant poet Sarah Kay to join us as we talk about how to write the best poems of our lives. We’ll discuss how to craft a killer line to knowing when and how to edit your work into something singular. Join us for this creatively joyous experience!