What's the Lesser of Two Evils?

Over the summer, when I was working until 9, 10 or 11pm, I'd come home each night to a blinking notification that I had voice mail. And I'd be excited, of course, because after a pretty solitary and lonely evening, the possibility of some love from a friend or family member was just what I needed.

But it never failed: the messages would always be from telemarketers informing me that I'd been preapproved for a credit card, or the entry that I or a family member or friend had submitted had been chosen and I'd won a trip, or that I could consolidate my mortgage payments (note: I rent, not own), or that a satellite TV provider would be in my area ... You all know what these calls sound like. And my caller ID would be filled with "Unknown Caller" or "Ocean Glass" or "Iowa" or "Michigan" or other random IDs.

And I found that there really was not much more depressing than coming home from work so late again to find all these messages and have none of them be from people you actually know. Talk about adding insult to injury.

So a couple of months ago, I finally signed up for the National Do Not Call Registry. The thing works like a charm; no more telemarketing calls, no more random IDs on the caller ID. (Alright, maybe an occasional one or two.) In fact, almost no calls at all.

But you know what? I'm not sure this is so much better. I keep asking myself what's worse: coming home after a long day to messages, even if they are from telemarketers, or coming home to nothing. And no, this is not a plea for people I know to call me. It's just something of a discussion topic, I suppose, even if it's a discussion I'm having with myself. Personally, in hindsight, I think I may have liked the calls. Maybe it was their frequency that got annoying. (Ehhhh, maybe not.) I mean, after all, it's nice to be called by people. Who doesn't like attention? I don't know.

So what do you think? Is it worse to have no messages waiting or to have multiple messages from telemarketers?