A prerecorded call that is sent to hundreds or thousands of telephone numbers. An automatic dialing computer goes through a targeted list of phone numbers.

Or: an individual call received.

When you eat dirt for the first time and leave your family to build a shack in the woods

A form of cluetrain-ignorant marketing in which an organization, often a political campaign, uses a machine to dial your phone number and leave a pre-recorded message, deliberately wasting your time and subjecting you to a dehumanizing experience in order to save the organization time and money.

A prerecorded phone message sent to many unhappy phone owners to try and get people to buy some lame junk.

A call that someone's parents gets from their child's school saying that they have missed one or more classes.