I talked to a scammer on the phone.  I looked up his premise on Google after he hung up on me.  I didn't cooperate.  I asked him questions, became emphatic that he identify where he was calling from.  He sounded Indian or Pakistani.  I could hear a call center in the background.  His thick accent didn't cross the communications web without losing the clarity his voice would've possessed had he been in the same room with me, trying to convince me, eyes to eyes, to turn on my computer and follow his instructions.
     He explained that I needed to check Windows, that "11,000" computers have crashed due to something or other.  My immediate reaction, kept to myself, was, I was just about to sit down and read for a while, and you want me to sit in front of the computer and listen to your hard to comprehend voice coaching me through a series of questionable actions?
     It sounded like a drag.
     He explained himself again, and again.  I thought, Even if you're actually trying to be helpful, your approach sucks.  You're not being clear.  I don't know who the fuck you are.
     When I repeated, forcefully, emphasizing each word, "Where are you calling from?" he disconnected.
     In the Google search box I typed, People calling about Windows.  As I figured, it's a scam.  Marks snagged by it turn on their computers as instructed and receive "help" from friendly, "concerned" strangers.
     Curiosity, my best defense, made me ask, "Why?"  Why do you want me to do this?  Why do you want me to do that?
     He said, "You NEED to go to your computer now!"
     Picture a health expert making cold calls, insisting, "You MUST drink at least eight ounces of V8 per day!"
     "You say 11,000 computers have crashed," I said.  "Are you and your colleagues calling everybody in the world as part of some do-good operation?"
     He denied participating in such an enormous endeavor, but insisted my computer had to be checked.  He, I assume he was trying to say, was the man for the job, volunteering his time for Windows users in another hemisphere--an unasked-for favor unintentionally stinking of shadiness, ignore the smell.
     The background chatter of others doing the same thing reminded me of my time working for a call center contracted to raise money for police charities.  Along with nine others, I spent forty-six hours a week calling out of state residents, reading a "script" from a computer screen, learning to make it sound natural enough to get good at it before quitting the job.  I learned to modulate my voice, earning strangers' trust, convincing them to donate from twenty-five to a hundred dollars.  Extracting a donation felt good.  The room's compactness meant that the boss had his desk well within hearing range of everyone's voices saying the same things all day.  If an entire morning passed without making a successful call, my frustration and exasperation would be noticed by the boss.  I could occasionally feel his eyes on me.  Sometimes, glancing at him, I'd see him glaring at one of my coworkers.
     People in jobs making cold calls are like many others in the working world, doing the latest shitty job in possibly a long adulthood of shitty jobs.  I sympathize, for I was one of them.  My own headset-wearing job didn't consist of scamming people and fucking up their computers, but it did involve convincing some probably quite poor people that it was a good idea to give twenty-five, fifty, or a hundred of their dollars to police charities instead of using it to buy groceries and gasoline.  Even at the time I viewed the job as preying on the good natures and beliefs of people minding their own business.  If telephone cold calls meant to separate people from their money were abolished, humanity, I'm convinced, would be better off.
     Scammer, if you ever read this, please realize I understand you're doing a job you need in order to get by, but also understand when I say, as I didn't say when we talked, "Fuck you."

                                                                             Vic Neptune