How many of you have downloaded the new Caller ID app?

When I was a kid, the phone rang and we answered it.

Eventually, we got an answering machine that used small audiocassette tapes, one for the message a caller would hear and one to take messages from callers.  With time, we learned to let the answering machine accept the call so we could decide whether to pick up the phone or let the caller decide to leave a message.

Years later, Caller ID became widely available, meaning we could then look at a digital display of the incoming phone number and associated name, decide on that information whether to pick up the phone or let the answering machine, now also digital, take the call.

With the latest Caller ID app, oddly enough named TMI4U2Day2, uses a database that holds all possible phone combinations and searches the Internet constantly for relevant information associated with a phone number, including name, address, public profiles on popular social media, reviews (mainly for business phone numbers), legal info and other knowledge you might want to know about an incoming call, displaying a summary on the app front page when a call comes in on your smartphone, app-enabled deskphone, digital satellite television or Internet TV appliance.

My favourite part is the add-on, which allows you to use a voice recognition system to track down the anonymous identity of telemarketers.

The last couple of days have been fun, what with political-funded pollsters calling to get my opinion about news headlines where, within seconds, I can respond to the caller with his/her name, prompting many to hang up while I spout off their personal information such as recent marriage problems nuanced in family facebook support posts and rambling blog entries.

I want a business to call where I can surprise the person talking to me that s/he is part of a class action lawsuit that will ruin the reputation of anyone that has worked for the company and/or its affiliates.

I can’t wait until the next nonprofit organisation calls to get my undesired donation to help the International Ingrown Toenail Research Centre or Television Cooking Show Addicts.

“Hello?”

“Hi, there!  This is the International Ingrow…”

“Juhgitframnithwqa, is that you?”

“Huh?  How do you know my name?”

“Did you really just tell your boyfriend that his getting your sister preggers is going to put your marriage plans on hold?”

“Where did you get that information?”

“Wait.  Don’t you want to tell me the sad story about a lonely boy who’s afraid to go out into public because of his embarrassing ingrown toenails and…”

“Stop right there!  I want to know how you know me.”

“Oh, come on.  EVERYBODY knows what happened.  In fact, the United Nations is holding a referendum on your boyfriend problem this afternoon…”

CLICK!

Check your app store today.  And hurry!  Only the first 10 million downloads will include a free nonshareable version of TMI4U2Day2.  The rest of you will have to donate one of your kidneys to get this add-on that all your friends, real and virtual, will be blabbering on about in social media outlets in this solar system, making you look so, like, yesterday.