The Lightbulb Man
This happened twice some years ago. I received a phone call from some guy in Texas. In a most humble and non-threatening voice, not sounding like a telemarketer or scam artist at all, he says to me he’s handicapped and confined to his house but makes a living by making light bulbs in his home and selling them over the phone. He asks me to buy some. Usually when I get a sales pitch over the phone it’s more direct. Either I am asked to give to a charity I’ve never heard of, or I'm asked to surrender my social security number so they can free all the money in an account an uncle I never knew I had died and willed to me. These are old, tried and tired telemarketing gimmicks, but this one was new and fresh. The whole idea of someone calling asking me to buy homemade lightbulbs to support a handicapped person such as himself was refreshing. He had succeeded in turning the ignition to my brain on, and my pistons were chugging at a r...