The 'phone rang tonight. I was up to my elbows in dishwater but I rinsed off quickly and checked the Caller ID. It was a 408 area code, unknown name. Could it be a friend or relative on a cellphone? I answered.

"Is this William East?" she asked. She had me. What could I do? She had gotten me on the first try, I was nailed. "This is he" I answered.

"This is Carol Something or Other" she said, "From Republicans for Some Damn Thing." (I confess - I wasn't paying her my complete attention.) And then the interrogation started, without preamble or preparation:

"Do you believe the greatest challenge facing America today is..." followed by a list of social, probably Democrat-inspired, ills. I let her rattle them all off. I paused for a moment and answered "I believe the greatest problem in America today is people not respecting the Do Not Call list."

Carol was not a fan of witty repartee. Things got snippy, in a hurry. "We are exempt from that. Thank you for your time." And an immediate disconnect. Our chance for dialogue, seconds ago pregnant with possibility, had ended. So Carol, here's my response to you. Maybe you'll read it when you're looking for a Dead Milkmen fan page some day:

Yes Carol, I do know that when the political leaders of these great United States enacted the Do Not Call list, they somehow managed to exempt themselves, not to mention telephone surveyors such as yourself from its provisions. Rick Santorum can call me three times a day, morning noon and night, to sell me snake oil, hot air or empty promises. And then he can hire you, Carol, to call and find out what I think he should tell me he believes in so he won't slip up and speak his own mind.

But the thing is, here's this resource available to you, of people who are cranky enough about getting called in the middle of peak dishwashing hours that they took the time to visit a web site and give their full name and telephone number in the hope, however small, that they'll just be left alone. And you're not going to avail yourself of that? Are people who don't want unsolicited sales calls particularly good resources for the surveying community?

I realize it's not you personally, Carol, who thought I should be probed for my opinion on the state of the world as it is but some high-up chief survey manager at Republicans for Some Damn Thing with a database, perhaps borrowed from the Republican Party, of names and numbers. Didn't that manager ever wonder if by pestering the above-mentioned cranks at home his organization, and by association Republicans in general, might lose some of their appeal to poor misanthropes such as myself? And why is it that no-one stopped to wonder whether (and this is probably the most serious point in this whole overreaction of mine) that which is not forbidden might still not be the right thing to do?

If you can't guess, Carol, I've been thinking about this for a little while. Why don't you think about it and get back to me on it? You've got my number.