Even though we’re on the Do Not Call List that doesn’t stop unwanted phone calls. Depending on my mood I either politely defer and hang up or adopt a Haitian accent and place a dire voodoo curse on the caller. Unfortunately, I was in a benevolent mood when a recent call came and answered politely.
As they so often do, this one began with a man saying “Hello, may I speak to Paul please?” Though I often respond to this query by saying Paul was abducted by aliens and hasn’t been returned yet, I confessed that I was he (him?). “Paul,” the caller continued, “this is President Barak Obama and I’m calling to ask…”
I’ve heard a lot of spiels from telemarketers but this took the cake! I couldn’t imagine what this idiot thought he could sell me by pretending to be the president. So I cut him off: “Yeah, sure you are –“ but just before I hung up the caller said “no, really, I am President Obama and I need to talk to you about…”
“If you really are the president, prove it.” The caller then said, “Here, Joe, tell him who I am.” Another man took the phone and said “Hi. You’re Joe Biden, Vice-president of Armenia. May I speak to Vladimir Putin please?”
Geez – anyone that incoherent had to be Joe Biden! Maybe this was legit. I asked him to give the phone back to the President. “Okay, that sounded like the VP. Maybe you really are Obama. But why in the world are you calling me???”
“Well, Paul, I’m calling because I see that you’re a registered Democrat…” Wow! The Dems must really be desperate for money if the president is calling schlubs like me to ask for a few bucks! But he went on “… and we were wondering if you might be interested in running for political office.”
“I don’t know, that takes a lot of work. What office do you have in mind?”
“President.”
“Whoa – you must have the wrong person – you want me to run for president?” I told him there had to be a mistake but he was firm. “No, Paul, we think you could be the man for the job.” I was dumbfounded and stammered something about the Democrats already having Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. “Come on, Paul. Hillary’s got A LOT of baggage and Bernie’s insulting all our wealthy donors. Neither one of them stands a chance against Donald Trump.”
“Well, what about Joe Biden? Isn’t he thinking about running?”
“Didn’t you just talk to him?”
“Oh, yeah. But why ask me?” I was hoping he’d say that it was because of my influential Albion News columns but he replied “Because your name was the next one on the list.”
Talk about a buzz kill! Apparently Obama was calling every registered Democrat in the country hoping to find someone willing to take on Trump. I didn’t know how many he’d called before me but they’d obviously all said “no.” And I could see why. Who would want to stand in the path of Hurricane Donald?
Thinking quickly I yelled “Help, I’m being abducted by aliens!” and hung up the phone, narrowly saving myself from a fate worse than a Martian medical probe.
It seems, though, that other Republicans don’t want to face Trump either. Just the next evening after receiving Obama’s call I got one from Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus asking “Paul, how would you like to run for president?”