guide to the jewplexed


Can somebody please tell me how to escape a phone call that plagues me daily? I grow weary in my telephonic servitude and pray for freedom. Tell me: How can I make an Exodus from Rachel at Cardholder Services?

I work at home, and without fail near the buzzer of a writing deadline she calls: "There are no problems currently with your credit card account. But it's important that you act fast in order to reduce your interest rates," she told me more times last week than the haggadah has plagues.

My number has been on the "Do Not Call" registry for years, and she has not shown me any mercy. I hang up. She calls back. I push buttons randomly. She dials me again. I leave the phone off the hook. She waits patiently until I put it back.

Rachel, you steal my time. Under the lash of your relentless robocalling, running to your calls, it's like I'm your phone slave.

As we approach Passover, I need to know: Will you even call during our seder? I beseech you. Let my number go!

Rachel, be warned, as a result of your robocall harassment of the multitudes, a great cry has gone up on the internet, and with much Twittering, that has thankfully been heard by a higher authority.

The chairman of the Federal Trade Commission has declared "Rachel from Cardholder Services is Public Enemy Number 1." But downer of downers, even though the FTC shut down five Rachel operators in Florida and Arizona in 2012, the calls continue to afflict us.

Rachel: Let my number go!

To ease our affliction, the FTC has issued a "Robocall Challenge" with a prize of $50,000 for solutions that will block illegal robocalls. Submissions are in, and the winners-- based on workability and ease of use--will be jubilantly announced April 15.

But until that day, to win our freedom from Rachel--and other telemarketers who disobey the "do not call" laws, I will put my trust in this time-tested haggadah-based methodology, read yearly at Passover seders everywhere:

(Taking out a drop for each plague, dip your pinky into a cup of Listerine, and recite with me.)

Frogs--Anyone who makes a "Rachel" call or records one, comes down with severe laryngitis.

Flood-- The phone lines of Cardholder Services are swamped with calls of telemarketers doing political surveys. Alternatively, a good old time real flood in Rachel's offices would be OK too.

Lice--They get them. Spend hundreds on treatment. Get them again.

Hail--Their servers freeze up, blocking any further transgressions. And, while we're at it, throw in some phone line disrupting lightning for a perfect storm.

Darkness--Every computer screen at Cardholder Services goes blank. All memory is erased. Once computers are finally rebooted, they only play an endless loop of Rachel reading the Desiderata.

Locusts--The swarm of complaints to the FTC finally overtakes them.

Death--Not that I would wish anyone dies over this--at least not publicly--but for sure their cell phone batteries die; car batteries too.

So, you think it's overreacting to go "Biblical" on Rachel? All these years, who's been plaguing who? Tell old Pharaoh--I mean Rachel: Let My Number Go.


Edmon J. Rodman has written about making his own matzah for JTA, Jewish love music for the Jerusalem Post, yiddisheh legerdemain for the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, a Bernie Madoff Halloween mask for the Forward, and what really gets stuck in the La Brea Tar Pits for the Los Angeles Times. He has edited several Jewish population studies, and is one of the founders of the Movable Minyan, an over twenty-year-old chavura-size, independent congregation. He once designed a pop-up seder plate. In 2011 Rodman received a First Place Simon Rockower Award for "Excellence in Feature Writing" from the American Jewish Press Association."