...the best would be none of the above. But sometimes the cure is almost as bothersome as the disease.

If you don't think that telemarketing is a disease you haven't gotten calls from the creep who most recently latched onto my unlisted personal private line yet.. This one is even more pernicious than than that outfit from Southern California that purports to be soliciting money to help misguided teenagers. You can't demand that they stop calling because it is a computerized recording about the alleged expiration date on a mythological auto warranty.

Because it is a computerized message, it ties up the phone line for 24 seconds. That seems like hours when I am trying to dial out on an important call. The other annoying factor is the time it takes to go into my phone log and block and delete all those different numbers. And guess what, the guy is getting past my call blocking. Even though he changes the name, phone number, and area code every few calls, they are apparently in rotation and lately I've found when going to block the numbers that they were already blocked? Anybody know how they do that? Please don't tell, as then more people will be doing it. But how do we get them to stop?

If you know the answer to that one, please let me know.

In the meantime, though, I have good news. There is a non-profit organization online that offers a free service to help stop those unwanted catalogs everyone gets in the mail. Those were a particular problem for us because we travel a lot and we had to pay for mail forwarding. In order to get a couple of important first class items forwarded we had to pay to ship an armload of junk. That was really annoying. We solved the problem of our mailbox overflowing with unwanted credit card offers by joining LifeLock, but the catalogs continued to be a problem. Now I just log in to my free account with Catalog Choice.

They cannot shoot the companies that choose not to comply, but what they do instead is really helpful. After you select which catalogs you do not want, they let you review and modify your list. The companies who have honored your request will be coded accordingly and contact information will be provided for the others. I really like that!

This service is so unique that not only has it been featured on TV news shows, but at least one municipal waste disposal company has put an insert about them inside every customer's utility bill. In a way that bit seems rather ironic, but it seems to be working.