Skeptic 1.3

I Got This Survey Phone Call


I got this "survey" phone call
It was supposedly a questionnaire about Rahm and Daley
And some of the new aldermanic candidates
And what kind of a job I think they've done
And what kind of a job I think they're likely to do
And who I'd be likely to vote for
In the runoff election

It seemed normal at first
But a few minutes in, the guy switched gears
He started in on "what people were saying"
About Molly Phelan
And John Cappelman,
Both contenders for Helen Schiller's spot
In the 46th Ward

He gave me a list of positive things for both of them:
"Now I'd like to tell you some of the positive things people have been saying."
And then he asked
Does this information influence your vote?
And I said maybe.

And then he said,
"Now I'd like to tell you some of the negative things people have been saying."
And he gave me some dirt on Molly Phelan
And he asked me if that would influence my vote
And I said maybe
And I waited to hear the dirt on Cappelman

But he didn't give me any dirt on Cappelman
He suddenly switched gears again
And tried to move on to a different line
About something else.

And I was like
Wait a minute
Give me the dirt on Cappelman now.

And he was like
This is just the next section of the survey.

And I was like
You told me negative things about Phelan,
I want to hear negative things about Cappelman.

And he was like
This is just the next section of the survey
And he tried to just start reading me the next question
Before I could try to stop him

So I told him to hang on
And put the phone down for ten minutes
While I looked up the company he was working for on the internet
And just let him sit.

Helen Schiller, you should know
Has been trying to preserve low-income housing in her ward for years
She's like,
Where are they going to go?
Upper-middle class whites who bought condos thinking to flip them are always mad at her
They are always picketing
They are like,
There is too much crime.
And she is like,
Yes there is crime.
Let's fix the problem with social programs.
Let's not just wipe them away so your property values can go up
And you aren't stuck in an unflippable condo.

But now that she's out
They want to get someone in
Who will get rid of all the section 8 housing
So they pitch in money
To hire people
To call people
And try to befuddle and manipulate them
With baloney "surveys"

When I picked up the phone again
The guy was like
Hello? Hello?
I told him I couldn't continue the survey
Because he was obviously hired to smear Phelan by the Cappelman people
In a really sneaky and insidious way
He just said ok
And hung up