> My name is easy to pronounce. Friends of mine who have names with various pronunciation potential love getting calls from telemarketers because it allows them to "lie" without actually doing so. My friend, "Mr. Chuidian," has no problem saying, "No, he doesn't live here," when they ask for Mr. Chy-die-ann.

Heh. That's what my family usually does with telemarketers too, though we don't find it quite so amusing. You can only hear your last name mangled over the phone so many times before it starts playing weird tricks on your mind: once, I mispronounced my own family name in public.

On the other hand, no telemarketer antic gets me steamed quite like those people who call and ask for someone by their first name. "Hi there, can I talk to Jane?" It's a pretty inept attempt to make the person who has picked up think it's a personal friend calling, especially since you can sometimes hear other telemarketers making calls in the background.

M"Er...she can't come to the phone right now"el