There is something on the market that has helped me avoid all of those telemarketers that are trying to sell home mortgages, trips to Breezy Point, windshield glass, carpet shampoos, and seamless gutters.
This tool has also helped me avoid solicitations for every fundraiser and campaign, both worthy and unworthy.  It may not be nice to lump them all together, worthy and unworthy as they may be, but that lumping is among the least of my concerns.
And I didn't need to put my name on a "National Don't Call List" in order to avoid the continual unwanted everyday phone interruptions.  Such a list is, in my opinion, only one more invasion of privacy that sets us up for other calls for other reasons.  It's like raising your hand in the classroom when you don't want to be called on by the teacher.
I don't understand why the National Don't Call List is getting so much attention.  It's on every flippin' channel every single day, and I find the media attention just as annoying as the telemarketers themselves.  It's not even news.  It's junk.  It's gossip.  It's idle chatter about idle chatter.  And I wonder what is, in fact, spurring on all of the hullabaloo.
Maybe the chatter has become prime time news on network television because the mainstream media and the telemarketers are in cahoots with the National Don't Call List.  They all want our number, our attention, and our time.  Well, they're not getting mine.  I've got Caller I.D.!
Maybe you use Caller I.D. for that reason, too.  It works well, if you know how to work it and if you don't let curiosity kill the cat.  I've had it for a long time, years actually, and it's the best thing since sliced seven-grain bread. 
Instead of getting my dander up about telemarketers, I get my dander down by not answering the phone unless I recognize either the name or the number calling me.  It's very simple, and it's not that expensive.  It's cheaper than high blood pressure, and it can be like a game.  The trick is:  Don't pick up the phone simply because you're curious about who is on the other end of the line.  After a while the telemarketers and fundraisers get the message, or non-message, and stop calling.  Then you're the winner.
But, you may be asking, what about the forgotten or faraway friend who is calling from a number that I don't recognize and who doesn't get through to me because I don't pick up the phone?  That's very simple, too. 
Those nice people can leave me a message.  I'll pick up the phone as soon as I hear their voice or, if I'm not home or in the middle of something that demands full attention, they can finish their message after the beep and I'll return the call as soon as possible.
Back in the old days, when a Fuller Brush Man drove on the yard, one of us kids would get sent to the door and we'd lie through our teeth as we said, "Mom isn't home."  The man would just look at us, probably wondering how a noisy household of seven kids could get so quiet all of a sudden on a breezy summer day with all of the windows open, and then he'd walk back to his car with all of those fancy dance brushes still in his suitcase.
In this present day and age, when door to door has been replaced by phone to phone, I don't hesitate to make it clear to them either that "Mom isn't home."  I've learned that it's not a lie.  It's the clear honest truth that I am not home to every Tom, Dick, and Harry that comes knocking or calling with their wares.  If I want wares, I'll go to the store, thank you.
If God had wanted us to listen to every voice that might bug or beg our time or distract us from our work and family, He would have given us more than two ears.  Meanwhile, I've got Caller I.D. and my time can be spent making dinner and baking cookies and writing the scoop from City Hall, and even writing this column for you, without jumping each time the phone rings.  The telemarketer may have my number, but I've got his too ... in a manner of speaking. 

                                                                              ~Sue