Jim Ass Langer

No, that’s not his real name.

Not only have I changed the last name to protect the semi-innocent, I can’t say for sure, exactly who the robotic voice is asking for when we get calls for old Jim Ass (You’d think those robots would speak clearer, though that would take away from the smile I get everytime I get a call). Okay, I do know because we used to get calls for this guy from human beings and they were very clear they wanted to speak to/harrass Jim S. Langer. 

We’ve had our phone number for four years, but old Jim Ass must have had it before us because for four years we’ve been getting calls from schools, banks, stores, sometimes it’s a robot on the other end and sometimes it’s a person.

At first, before I realized what was going on with poor Jim Ass, I’d just say politely, “He doesn’t live here. This is his old number,” and call it a day. Well, then that call would launch a slew of others (collections people must have a network system working that ignites the instant they actually speak to a person in a given household) and it didn’t take long before I realized Jim Ass was on the run. So, I’ve adjusted my nice response to a very clear “We don’t know him, never knew him, never even saw him and have no idea where he is or was or will be.”

Trouble is, these days, we mostly get calls from robots requesting that Jim Ass Langer give them a call. (Huh? Are you freaking kidding me? These companies can’t really think that a guy who’s avoided them for years is going to take a message from a robot and immediately call back.) Because they’re robots, I can’t tell them not to call back and though I did return a call once thinking I could clear things up, they put me on hold for a year. Like I’m going to sit there forever when it’s not even my account? Please, these people are insane.

Who knows what Jim Ass’s real troubles are. Maybe he was sincerely down on his luck and everything just snowballed into what must be a hellish existence, but geeze, how the hell do I sever him from my phone number?

Anyway, at the very least, the robots make me smile everytime I hear them ask for Jim Ass instead of Jim S.