Once a Month, I am a Robot

The title isn't a reference to my period.  Believe me, during my period, I'm anything but a robot.

No, see, once a month, I get a call from the people who supply me with my CPAP parts.  I never talk to a human from the company, it's always a programmed call and always the same series of questions.

*phone rings*
Me: *after fishing phone from my purse or what other place it happens to be hiding from me and looking at the caller ID to make sure I know the number and it's not some bill collector* Hello?
Robot: Hi there. This is_____ ______ .

At this point, I become a robot.

When you talk to a robot, you more or less have to be one. Normal phone voice just won't cut it.  The reason is simple. Robots do not understand inflection or tone or accents. So any time you're speaking to a computer program on a phone, you more or less have to sound as much like that program as possible.

So the conversation continues:
Medical Supply Robot: Am I speaking with the person who uses a CPAP/BiPAP at this address? Please say yes or no.
Robot Me: Yes.
Medical Supply Robot: Are you using your CPAP/BiPAP equipment? Please say yes or no.
Robot Me: Yes.

My robot voice is as flat, clear, and non inflected as possible.  My roommate can always tell when I'm doing this call, because all he years is "Yes" about ten times.  Well, and one no. One question is asked to where you have to respond with a no. I guess this is to insure you're not a real robot. Just a human being one at the moment.

The only time during the whole phone call when I'm not a robot is during one brief moment of snarky eye rolling. There is a point when the phone robot says, "Your insurance provider cares about you and promotes your health by..." and some other stuff. I'm usually eye rolling at this point because the whole statement sounds like dystopian propaganda.  So I ignore that part and wait for my next "Please say yes or no" so I can become a robot again.

Don't get me wrong though. I don't mind being a robot once a month.  Quite frankly, I'd rather talk to the robot about my medical supplies than some human. The robot is routine and easy to understand, if boring.  We get down to basics and I don't have to try and be polite and I have no tendency to over explain things.  I find the medical supply robot to be comforting and we have a pretty good robot-relationship.

And as crazy as this sounds, if they ever changed the policy and made me talk to humans, I'd miss the robot voice.  With a human, the whole needful routine of the call would be forced and awkward.  The last thing I want every month is a whole phone convo of that.