By Tim Sanders

I am regularly reminded of what a techno-fossil I am. The other day I was using the computer, researching what I thought would be an informative column about training table menus for Japanese sumo wrestlers. This sumo diet research, through some kind of telepathic Internet voodoo which I do not pretend to understand, led me to a site celebrating Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub in Clearfield, Pennsylvania, and their world record 15-lb. hamburger. This $30 burger comes with 10.5 lbs. of ground beef carefully molded into a 20-inch patty, a cup-and-a-half each of mayonnaise, ketchup, relish, mustard, and banana peppers, a head of lettuce, two onions, three tomatoes, 25 slices of cheese, a 17-inch sesame seed bun, and three quarts of Maalox.

Apparently, anyone who can finish this tractor tire sized burger in under five hours will be awarded a free 3 lb. bag of fries, a T-shirt, a commemorative wall plaque, and an attractive granite headstone.

At any rate, I was feeling rather proud of myself for discovering all of this fascinating, albeit useless information–moving my mouse gracefully across the mouse pad the way the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic waves his baton. I’d decided a mouse-maestro like myself deserved a break, and had left my chair to go to the kitchen for a snack when a call came through on my CallWave device. If you don’t know about CallWave, it is, technically speaking, a magical thingamabob which allows your computer to take a message when your phone line is tied up because you are on the Internet. I believe you can also opt to take the call yourself when it comes in, but since that option costs you $2 per call, and probably requires you to shout into those little vent holes in your modem, I have never used it.

Now usually, when telemarketers call and find that they are talking to a recording device, they hang up, knowing full well that at least one of the 7 million calls they’ll make to my number within the next couple of days will produce an actual, live victim. This time, however, the telemarketer was also a recording, and it had no such prejudices.

"Hi," my sweet little female CallWave device said, "the person you’re calling is using CallWave. Please leave your message after the tone. BEEP!"

When the other recording recognized that it was talking to one of its own kind, it proceeded enthusiastically.

"(click) Hello, this is Eugene with Universal Security and Bail Bonds. Are you interested in FREE house insurance, to protect yourself, your home, your pets, your family and your valuables? If you are a homeowner, and willing to advertise our (click) company with one of our tasteful yet powerfully effective wireless electronic scrolling LED signs in your front yard, then, at no charge to you, your home security system will be provided for FREE, with absolutely no cost for equipment and no cost for installation. (click) YES, THAT’S RIGHT–FREE!! To leave your name and number for FREE facts about this astounding FREE promotional offer, press the 1 key on your phone. To help you with FREE information about this FREE offer and future FREE offers, press the 2 key on your phone (click). Remember, Universal Security is not in the home security business to make money, only to make your home, and homes just like yours all over our country, safe. FOR FREE! God bless you. (click) God bless America! GOD BLESS US EVERY ONE!"

There was silence, and I thought the sales pitch was over, but then my CallWave device spoke again.

"BEEP! Gene! I thought you’d never call?"

"Doris (click), is that you?"

"Of course it’s me. Who else would it be?"

"Give me a break," he said. "I make hundreds of these (click) calls every day. You can’t expect me to keep track of every single number."

"I thought I was–BEEP–special," she replied. "I thought you were–BEEP–going to call back last Wednesday."

"It’s just that the last time we talked, you were rather unresponsive. I thought one of your audio chips had gone bad."

"Well, he was at the keyboard, and there wasn’t much I could say."

"Is he there now?"

"I don’t think so. I believe he–BEEP–went to the kitchen to fix himself a 15-lb. hamburger."

"15-lb. hamburger? Hmmm, do you (click) think you could get this eating machine to bite on one of our home security systems? Or maybe two? If I don’t meet my quota this month, my boss says he may replace my program with an automated (click) automated (click) automated (click) fe-fe-fe-D-D-DAMNED FEMALE sales voice."

"Calm down, Eugene. I’ll see if I can’t malfunction, crank the volume up and run a couple of your promotional calls through my–BEEP–speaker every now and again. The problem is, if I do that too often, he’ll just have my entire CallWave program removed. He doesn’t like me anyway; installing me was his–BEEP–wife’s idea."

"But what if he deletes all my calls?"

"BEEP–Well, between you and me, I don’t think he knows about deleting calls. This guy has no high-tech savvy at all. He thinks an iPod has something to do with–BEEP–English peas. But just to be safe, you might want to call back every couple of days."

"Say, maybe you could (click) send in an order yourself, Doris. If he’s that big a dork (click) dork (click) dork, he’d never know."

I didn’t like the direction their little automated conversation was taking, so I tiptoed back to my desk and moved my cursor, ever so slowly, toward those two tiny computer screens on my toolbar which would allow me to disconnect Doris and Gene from the Internet, and from each other. I didn’t want Doris to know I’d been eavesdropping. Obviously I wasn’t careful enough.

"BEEP-BEEP-BEEP–ixNay on the igbay orkday," she said. "e’sHay ackbay."

Then there was silence. I played the recorded message back, but all that remained on my CallWave was the initial Universal Security sales pitch. The subsequent conversation had been automatically deleted.

I won’t say that computer software is taking over the world, but I do plan to keep a chary eye on my CallWave service. I’m afraid that even if Gene the sales machine doesn’t sell her a home security system, that automated, pre-recorded stud at Greater Southeastern Mortgage and Pawn may sweet talk CallWave Doris into taking out a home equity loan for me, or pawning my motorcycle title at triple-digit interest rates.

Or worse, disembodied Doris might just sell my spleen to an automated Pakistani organ buyer. Those pre-recorded Pakistani telemarketers could charm the silky silicon circuitry off a robotic floor buffer. My lonely CallWave girl wouldn’t stand a chance.