We get spam calls, nothing but spam calls, on our landline that came with our triple-action cable deal that we decided instead of not using, why not buy a vintage Princess phone off eBay and hook it up, wouldn’t that be fun?

So the calls arrive, twice a day sometimes, once a week. Unnervingly erratic. Ring ring ring ring. And of course we don’t answer them but it gives me grim, dumb satisfaction to block the numbers later on my Cable Company App.

Sometimes they leave voicemails. Listen to them before I delete them, out of curiosity but also maybe some old-fashioned sense of obligation. Someone leaves you a message, you listen. Then you delete. You destruct this message within thirty seconds. I get a chill before I listen to them—they come from such a dark place, the realm of international technology abuse. These are people who’d be happy to see you dead in exchange for a tiny fraction of Bitcoin. When I press play I brace myself like I’m about to hear the Monty Python joke that’s so funny it kills anyone who hears it. Then what is it? A screed in Chinese. Some asshole telling me it’s my last chance to respond to charges. The gleeful offer of an effortless job.

Then I click delete.