Tin foil hat alert...

For those of you not familiar with the tin foil hat reference, it is used as a derogatory term for those of us who are conspiracy theorists. It comes from the guys who would wear tin foil on their heads so the aliens couldn't read their minds. That is absolutely true.

I just don't like giving out my phone number to the clerks at the register in Babies 'R' Us or Bed Bath and Beyond. I don't know why. It makes me feel...violated. I know they don't have some big database of phone numbers that they use to call people and if someone answers they hang up and mark that they were home at that certain time of the day and call back many times to record their comings and goings.

But they do.

Why else would the Babies/Bath clerk look at me as if I had lobsters crawling out of my ears when I politely respond no thanks to their request for my phone number?

They get paid by the phone number you know. The more numbers the more money and points can be accumulated so as to receive recommendation and citation from said multi-national conglomerate which in turn uses the phone numbers to attain massive amounts of consumer data on the unknowing public which they will one day use to manipulate worldwide financial data and ultimately take over the world. Either that or they want me to know when the Huggies go on sale.

I will buy my next car at a place where the salesman doesn't tell me his job depends on the survey they will be sending me.

"Make sure you mark everything exceptional."

"Even if it wasn't?" (said chucklng nervously)

...

...

"I'll do as you say."

Too much pressure for me. I don't want to be responsible for a guys job who I just bought a car from. I only want to be responsible for a guys job who I didn't just buy a car from.

(If there are children reading this please understand that I in no way condone the ending of sentences in prepositions. It's just in this case, for the comedy, I thought it was warranted.)