Call of the Campaigns

The calls began several months ago. Some were from one political candidate or another, but most were surveys (though I suspected they were surveys from campaigns). They would come two, three, four times a day. Most of the time I would simply hang up when I heard the delay between my “Hello” and the inevitable beginning of the robo-call. Occasionally I would wait for the beginning of the call, then yell “Fuck you!” and hang up on a recorded message. But soon I began taking the surveys. Though I thought I was doing so in a subversive way:

“What age are you?” – 18

“What is your gender?” – Female

“What is your race?” – Black

“Do you agree with the policies of Barack Obama?” – Yes

“Do you agree with the policies of Mitt Romney?” – No

“Who will you vote for in November?” – Mitt Romney

I thought this was a pretty clever way to subvert these impersonal surveys. But recently I’ve been receiving more robo-calls, and they’re all from the Republican National Committee or the Romney campaign, including personal (recorded) calls from Romney and Ryan. Apparently my cute attempt at subversion has resulted in my being tagged a Romney supporter and that that campaign is trying to get me out to vote. So now I’m back to simply hanging up. But I also yell “Fuck you!” when I do so. No one is listening, I realize, but there’s still some satisfaction in expressing rage, if only for its own sake.