All telemarketers and charity workers are rude! I once recieved a call for a charity on the day that I lost my job. I told this lady so and she said okay, if you cant send 50.00, how about 25.00? I said no, i cant even pay my bills!, she said how about 10.00? surely you can send 10.00? I said no, I cannot send 10.00! she said Im sorry you lost your job, but youll get another one soon and then you can send us money, whats your adress? ill send you the paperwork. I informed her that if I won 1 million dollars tommorrow, that she would never see a dime of it.

With regards to the advice given to LW1, I would like to strongly disagree with the columnists' advice to "gently" suggest to the husband to be a part of his children's lives. This man has an attitude problem! He doesn't need gentleness, he needs someone to kick him in the behind, and quick too! Sick of Soccer, if you don't like what your husband is doing, then watch "fried Green Tomatoes" When Kathy Bates tears down the wall to the game room, maybe you should heed her advice instead! Your husband is acting like a spoiled brat and by standing by doing nothing you are not helping the situation.

Re: wendy
Nice! Good for you! These charity fund-raising people and telemarketers think they can bully anyone into sending money and they actually use their cause as a manipulative sales pitch to do it too. It's horrendous. I can understand calling to ask for money, but once the person says no, I don't see why they keep trying...it's very rude. Hope you found work again.

My husband is a US Army Recruiter. When telemarketers call and ask if we want to buy, donate, etc I return the question with "Do you want to join the Army, I can make it happen".....they usually hang up first!

In response to 'Wife of a GBM Warrior', my question is why answer the phone? Even with the National Do Not Call Registry, we no longer answer our home or cell phones unless our caller ID identifies the caller. We are not the least bit curious nor bothered! In fact, our outgoing message on our answering machine says: "Due to the telemarketer idiots of the world, we are forced to screen all calls..."