Hey -- did they have a recorder for our conversations with credit card companies after my mother in law died? I swear, the calls were truly obnoxious. After a while we just got frustrated trying to get through to them. We tried politely telling them she died. We were rude. We were sarcastic. We were funny. Nothing seemed to penetrate into their little heads.

One night, hubby told the lady that mom was sitting on the mantle. The lady wanted to speak to her. Hubby walked over, set the phone on top of the mantle and walked away. I have no idea how long the collection agent tried to talk to a box of ashes but I'm guessing they never quite understood what we meant.