salescunts
I can’t help but absolutely love the weird shock/disappointment groan when I tell telesalespeople from my ISP (which is also a cable provider) that I don’t watch television.
(It’s not really true - I do watch tv sometimes - but being as I don’t subscribe to cable and don’t know how to work the digital broadcast receiver that may or may not be built into my tv, I feel it’s ok to say that I basically don’t watch it. Especially since it stops the salescall dead in its tracks with this bizarre retreat which possibly leaves the salesperson feeling embarrassed and ashamed for disturbing a superior intellect, on who is above television, when really its just somebody with the small amount of cunning it takes to realize that this simple statement will get them off the phone so that I can go back to watching tv.)
[It astounds me how reading an interview when I was, like, 12 or 12, with Harlan Ellison, of whose work I’ve only ever read one novelette (although I think I’ve seen a few of his Star Trek episodes), has caused me to stick to his convention of refusing to capitalizing “TV” out of some kind of smug contempt for the medium. I do the same thing with “nazi” or “nazis” unless its in an academic context where this non-standard capitalization (or lackthereof) would be unacceptable.]
