Why Does Not ‘No’ Mean Exactly That?

Is there something impossible to understand about the two-letter word “No?” I, for one, believe there is. Let me explain.
Goodness knows how long ago, when the alleged “Do Not Call” list first allowed us to put our telephone numbers on it, I posted our home number and our cell phone numbers.
I felt good about what I’d done. Nothing personal against those poor schmucks who have to sit in a boiler room and make those annoying calls, but they should look for employment in day care or peddling magazines or potato chips. I really feel sorry for them, knowing they are on the lowest rung of the longest ladder, but please, abide by my don’t call me order.
Nightly, it seems, the phone will ring smack in the middle of “Jeopardy” or “Wheel of Fortune.” Usually my better half will leave the comfort of the sofa to answer it, believing it to be some important call.
I hold my breath. See, I’m of that old school that phone calls only bring bad news. If the phone rings, it’s surely not to chat with me, since I’m not an avowed talker. The darn thing means trouble, always has, always will. I await news that a family member has taken ill or worse.
Just about that time, I can hear my beloved say, “I’m not interested.” “No!” “Take our names off your list.”
She returns to the living room unfit to take a blood pressure reading. Often she’ll question the benefit of the “Do Not Call List” and resume her activities. Woe, then, to the next caller, and sometimes it has happened. If and when she arises to answer that second call, snookered into thinking it might be an important call, like Lucy Brown holding that football for Charlie, all I can think is the biblical phrase, “Woe to that man. It would be better for him had he not been born.”
Sharing such episodes around the office lunch table, I found these were no isolated instances of disregard.
Worse is when the callers reply in a snide way, “We have a right to call you” then they cite some box we either did or did not check in a moment of weakness.
We all shudder when political campaigns are in full force. That means we will be deluged with calls which, it is claimed, have every right to be made, since politicians can skirt the “Do Not Call List” somehow, mystically.
So, my fellow besieged call recipients, I ask again, Is there something impossible to understand about the two-letter word “No?”
Certainly, Caller ID and message machines can be used to thwart the calls, but what should they be necessary to protect our home’s sanctity?
We’ve been working with a remarkable intern from Lower Cape May Regional High School, Tyler Hienkel. He told us that what we experience here in the good old U.S.A. is nothing compared to those folks in France with whom he spent some exchange time. There, he noted, calls begin about 7 p.m. and continue until maybe 10 p.m. or later.
I suppose it’s as difficult to understand the French utterance the equivalent of “No” as it is on this side of the Atlantic.
Imagine the training those callers must go through. Perhaps the first thing they are taught is to eradicate the word “No” from their brain. Maybe they undergo hypnotism for a half hour stretch. “There is no meaning to the word no.” Then, I’d bet, just like in George Orwell’s chilling (when I was young) book, “1984” when meanings were twisted. War means peace, hate means love, no means yes. It has to be something along those lines that drives those callers from afar.
Another co-worker tried to outsmart the nightly callers and used her phone’s ability to block certain numbers. Trouble was, she quickly exhausted the phone’s capability, and then embarked on some service her telephone company offered to stop the awful calls.
To be certain, this society in which we live has lost all civility. Simple greetings are lost, exchanged by grunts or glances to the floor. No longer do we men tip our hats to ladies. Some stand when a lady enters the room, still fewer may open and hold a door for a strange woman. And it’s been so long since I traveled on a crowded bus, I don’t know, but rather doubt, a man would surrender his seat to a woman.
That stated, why should the word “No” have any special meaning to strangers calling us on the phone? Could it be the first lesson in salesmanship class? Never take “No” for an answer.
Since it seems impossible that we will ever achieve anything really good to change this world, maybe a concerted effort to underscore the word “No” would be quite an accomplishment. Especially during our private times at home where we wrongly believed we were shrouded by that “Do Not Call List.”