As the last living owner of a landline phone, I can report it rarely rings. When it does, it’s nearly always a scammer. And, every time, there’s a dead giveaway: a two-second pause between when I pick up the phone, and when the scammer speaks.
I imagine this is the result of a computerised system that calls thousands of phones at random, with the call transferred to a human only once it’s answered. That two-second gap is a telltale sign of the approaching scam, allowing me to avoid the whole, weary-making attempt.
Slamming down the handset the other day, I realised that life is full of these dead giveaways – subtle signs that, 99 per cent of the time, reveal something’s not quite right. They are shortcuts to the truth.
Ring ring!
In the supermarket, for instance, I don’t need to read the nutrition panel, printed in tiny letters on the back of the packet. If it says “low fat” in huge letters on the front of the packet, I know it’s going to be high sugar and high salt. If it says “low salt”, I assume it’s packed with sugar or fat. If it says “Premium Blend” I know it’s overpriced. And if it says “Family Pack” I know it’s sweepings off the factory floor.
In the bookstore, meanwhile, I avoid anything with a dagger or a bullet on the cover, and certainly any book that promises to change my life. If the reviews on the back say it’s “sumptuously written” I know to run a mile.
How kind that every industry offers these dead giveaways. The Good Food Guide, for example, is an excellent publication, but if you find yourself without a copy, you can rely on some whispered tips. You should avoid any restaurant where the menu consists of a leather folder with tassels. Also: any place where the pepper grinder is bigger than the wine list. Also: any restaurant that either revolves or floats.
Life is full of dead giveaways – subtle signs that, 99 per cent of the time, reveal something’s not quite right.
With films, I have the 120-minute rule. Any longer and I know the director is a megalomaniac who has shunned the advice of the producer, editor and studio. If they are this up themselves about the length, their self-indulgence will feature elsewhere. Also: If it includes the death of a dog I’m not interested, as it shows an insensitivity to humanity’s finer feelings.
On commercial TV, current affairs programs always provide a coded message to the wise. You should avoid any show that “every parent needs to see” as it will inevitably list the signs your child must be on drugs, including sleepiness in the morning, hunger in the evenings, and a liking for music that is not to your taste.
Advice on “how you can solve the cost of living crisis” is also likely to fall short, especially as it will be spliced with ads encouraging you to buy takeaway food.
Meanwhile, I have my doubts about that episode of Home and Away that “you’ll remember forever”. A single episode of TV drama that will clog up your memory bank for decades should come with a warning, not a recommendation.
At the clothes store, I avoid “one size fits all”, which has always seemed an unlikely proposition. If the sales assistant says, “it will loosen over time”, I read that as a whispered confession “Mate, I’m working on commission”. If they say “that’s the way the young people are wearing them”, I run from the store.
Later, at the hardware shop, I laugh out loud at the “professional range” of gap fillers. No proper tradesman would share my need to plaster over the large cracks and fissures in every job I attempt. It should just say “Idiot’s Range” and be done with it.
The corporate world, of course, is full of dead giveaways. Any company that has removed the spaces in its name, so it reads BigBankAustralia, has been taken for a ride by someone with the word “marketing” in their job description. Also, any company that spends more time asking you to “rate our service” rather than providing that service in the first place, may have the wrong end of the stick.
In politics, of course, the dead giveaway is blaming a new government for everything that’s gone wrong, even though you were in power for about a hundred years. About a year or two in, there’s the equivalent dead giveaway for the other side: blaming every current problem on “the previous lot”.
Oh, and here’s another political dead giveaway: if, in any binary choice, your best argument is “vote no if you are uncertain in any way,” it may be a sign that you can’t win your case on its own merits.
Back in my home hallway, the phone rings again. I pick up, and again there’s the two-second silence. I hear the hopeful voice – “Hello” – before I click down the handset.
I realise that, for the scammers, this is probably their version of a dead giveaway: anyone who still has a landline, and answers it, must be so elderly, deluded and gullible they’re expecting the perfect target. Well, not me. I’ll always have my list of dead giveaways.
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