Determined caller keeps harassing me

I think I’m being harassed.

He won’t stop calling me. Several times a day my cell phone buzzes and caller ID says it’s the same person. I don’t know this person and I try to ignore his calls, but he’s very persistent. He’s also very manipulative.

I’m of the habit of not answering calls from phone numbers I don’t recognize. If it’s important, the unknown caller can leave a message. My friendly stalker has done so from time to time. I ignore those, too.

At first this person’s name showed up in black text on my phone just like everyone else. Now it pops up in fire engine red. Like I said, he’s very manipulative. He also gets around a lot. He usually starts the day from Kemah, but eventually he’ll roam around and call from Houston, Tomball, Katy, Spring, Baytown, and other communities in the area. Sometimes he calls from other parts of the state, like San Antonio. One time the call came in from “United States” and another time from Poland.

I’ve been referring to this caller as a male, because on those few occasions when he leaves a message it’s in a man’s voice, but he never leaves his name. Sometimes it’s in a woman’s voice, which makes me think maybe it’s his wife or girlfriend (or both). Whoever it is, they seem determined to talk to me about my car’s extended warranty.

I don’t have the heart to tell them that my car is 10 years old, paid for, and held together by bailing wire and bubble gum. It’s pretty dinged up but it still gets me to and from work each day. I really don’t think I need a warranty on it; I only have minimal insurance coverage as it is. But still, they call.

The last name on the caller ID is Risk. I’ve known a couple Risks before and I’m pretty sure it’s none of them. The first name is Spam. I don’t know why anyone would name their kid after canned lunchmeat, but to each their own.

If Mr. Risk continues to bother me, I might report it to the police department, FBI, or Hormel Foods. I might even go all the way to the very top and ask my wife to handle it. Trust me Mr. Risk, you do not want to mess with her. She will leave you shaking and quivering like a dish of green Jell-O in an earthquake and crying like you’ve just splayed open a rotten onion and rubbed your eyes with jalapeno juice on your fingers. Either that or she’ll bake you something sweet, sew you a blanket, and share recipes with you on Pinterest. It all depends on her mood and how you respond.

Getting back to my phone, when Mr. Risk first started calling I would use the Block Caller feature. Mr. Risk, however, kept changing his number. Eventually I blocked so many numbers that even my grandmother couldn’t get through, and she’s been dead for years!

I’ve thought about changing my number, but that would be a headache. It took me a long time to memorize my number and I’d have to go through the trouble of getting my family and friends to change it on their phones. Even if I did that, I’m willing to bet that Mr. Risk would still find my new number and start calling me all over again. That and I still haven’t figured out how I would get my new number to my grandmother.

From what I understand, Mr. Risk is a very busy person. I think he regularly calls just about everyone I know. With the frequency and urgency that Mr. Risk calls people you’d think there was a national crisis involving car warranties.

On that note, he might actually be trying to save all of us from some sinister communist plot to overthrow our car warranties. Gee, maybe I should take him up on his generous offer and save myself from being exploited by the Russians, China, North Korea, or Hormel Foods.

Joe Southern is the managing editor of the Wharton Journal-Spectator and the East Bernard Express. He can be reached at news@journal-spectator.com, but not by cell phone (you got that Mr. Risk!).