One thing about staying home from work to recuperate: I have to struggle off the sofa for every damned call that comes in, and four-fifths of them turn out to be from some slack-jawed rube, cold-calling me in the hopes that I'm dumb enough to buy something.

The phone rings and I waddle over the phone and pick it up.

"Hello?"

There's a pause, which instantly identifies this as a cold-call. The computer waits to hear me, then patches me through to the slack-jawed rube they've got squatting in a cube somewhere.

"Hello?" I say again.

"Hello," says the slack-jawed rube, the hubbub of his slack-jawed comrades behind him. "Is, ah, Mister or Missus..." -- there's a pause here, there's always a pause -- "...Kahnesh... there?"

I laugh a hollow, bitter laugh. "We're not interested," I say.

"Um," he says. "In what?"

"In whatever it is that you're selling."

"I'm not selling anything."

"I don't believe you."

"Um. OK."

"Now go away."

"Um. OK."

"And if you call here again, I'll find you and kill your cat."