Poll-ish Calls

I am the first to admit I get upset with robot calls, scam calls, and solicitation calls. I have posted several rants about the plaque that so often interrupts almost every hour of the day. Poll calls are another interruption and a bane to my peaceful life of writing or watching television. I am often quick to dismiss the caller in a sarcastic curt manner before I return to the task at hand, but Saturday evening I must have been in need of a diversion, because I was actually polite and possibly amusing.

Late afternoon, the telephone rang. A woman with a delightful, polite voice asked if I would be willing to take a five minute poll and answer some questions for the Pennsylvania Fish and Wildlife Commission. I’m not sure if it was her voice or whether I was bored, but after a deep breath I agreed.

As I answered the questions, I discovered that the lady’s name was Clovis. She was from a metropolitan area of Virginia nearly 700 miles away. The questions she asked were about the deer and wild turkey population. The variety of questions revealed just how much of a city person she was. One question was what did I think of people feeding deer? I shared that some farmers planted corn or soybeans to provide browse for them, but it was necessary to explain what baiting an animal meant. She asked whether I lived in a city, small town, rural farm, or rural area and asked whether I looked for deer with a spotlight. I told her that I didn’t, but rather I looked for sign of trails or scat. Another question was whether I was bothered about deer droppings in my yard, whether I had deer encroaching on my property and eating plants, or whether I allowed hunting on my property. I shared my property was too small to hunt on.

During the conversation I explained wasting away disease in deer was worrisome and I’d seen deer with tumors. When asked about the amount of deer I said that depends where I hunted, but I often saw dead deer along the highway and suggested that the Game commission push more heavily a hotline to report and have the carcasses removes. Ticks were another area broached.

All in all, it was a pleasant conversation, ending by me sharing that I was an author and blogger. I gave her a brief synopsis of my writing and I shared my BlogSpot address. I know she was being paid to talk with me, but it became a pleasurable interruption of my evening.