Getting Rid Of Telemarketers

We are on the "Do Not Call" list, but since charities are exempt from it, we get tons of calls from worthy causes wanting us to give money, especially so ever since I gave some old clothes to the MS Society. I actually did give a small amount of money to a walk for diabetes and Primary Children's Hospital, but that was because of my sister and her family. We really can't afford even $10 out of our budget to give to each of these worthy causes; if we had $10 lying around, I could go out to lunch with the kids or a friend at a fast food joint. Anyway, when I tell them our budget is tight, they still keep flapping their pieholes, begging for any small amount of money.

I have found the thing that will get them to hang up! I simply tell them that our budget is so tight that we're using cloth diapers. They are totally astonished and will tell you to have a nice day, then hang up.

I'm not sure why cloth diapers seem to be such an astonishing indicator of poverty to them. Cloth diapers are cheaper in the long run than disposables, and they're certainly less convenient (you pay for convenience). But they're not so much cheaper that they should indicate abject circumstances. Still, though, in a world where people think pushing a button on a microwave is "cooking," anything out of the convenience norm just shocks them. Honestly, though, what do they expect people did before the invention of all these conveniences? Did kids just go around pooping on the floor? Did people starve to death before the invention of the microwave?

Semi-related aside: I told a supermarket clerk that I was going to make some cheese, and she just dropped her jaw and said, "People can MAKE cheese?" I replied with a wink, "Well, it doesn't come out of the cow in one-pound rectangular chunks, does it?" She realized then that of course, cheese had to be make-able by people.