I like to sleep in on Saturday mornings. It is my only day of real rest, I guess. However, I often have to wake up at 9 a.m. to answer the phone. It is never my friends calling me — they are all still under the covers in their own homes slumbering peacefully. It is not the phone call I have been waiting for, asking me to come in for an interview. It is a telemarketer.

Telemarketers wake me up every Saturday. He or she interrupts my meals. Every time I answer the phone, it is a telemarketer.

I live in an apartment. I don’t need aluminum siding. I don’t need a burglar alarm either — of course, these telemarketers I invite to call back because I am robbing the place right now (the real owners will want one when they get back.) But that only works until they call the cops on me.

Still, I don’t think I need a call during dinner to receive yet another credit card. It’s not like I can’t get a credit card from tables outside the Campus Bookstore. How many credit cards do I need?

I am happy with my long distance plan.

I don’t need a bunch of useless magazines.

I was much surprised that using my phone to call me constitutes free speech under the Constitution. I don’t mind the sales pitches, as long as they don’t use my phone.

The telemarketer could use the United States Postal Service to send me an advertisement in the mail. They could buy space in the newspapers or magazines I read. They could give me their message on television with commercials or infomercials.

I don’t want to be called. I will choose when to do business with these people myself. I need my phone lines open for when I get a call back about a job.

The ‘do-not-call’ Registry is the perfect plan for eliminating telemarketers making unwanted calls. I don’t care if the registry will make these people lose their jobs. They could then seek more moral jobs, like lawyers, politicians, drug dealers or prostitutes (well, moral compared to telemarketers).

Or just maybe they won’t lose their jobs after all. These out-of-work telemarketers could stuff envelopes for mass mailing or answer phones from people who have already decided they want to buy their product. Isn’t that why junk mail and magazine ads have phone numbers on them?

I pay the bill for my home phone. I should be able to determine who calls me, and that has nothing to do with free speech. The advertisers are still free to advertise to me. They just can’t use my phone as a medium to do so.

Benjamin T. Rittgers

Alumni