Scenario: It’s 9:27 a.m. Central Daylight Time. I am lying in bed with Rob, stretching and rubbing my eyes and discussing his impending trip to the YMCA with our four children.
My cell phone starts ringing from where it sits on my headboard. I check the Caller ID. It’s no one I know calling from nowhere I recognize. I let it continue to ring without answering based on my usual justification that if it’s important, they’ll leave a message.
Less than a minute later, my phone emits the familiar notification sound alerting me that the caller did, indeed, leave a message. I call my voicemail and hear a grouchy little old man voice*.
“Well I’ve called about a dozen times** but you never answer.” CLICK.
[PSA begins in 3...2...1...]
When my phone rings, whether it be my cell phone or my landline, the FIRST THING I DO is look at the Caller ID because — to be brutally honest — I might not want to talk to whomever is calling.
Even if I know that person. Even if that person is my own mother.
See, in the first place, I’m not a huge fan of the phone-talking-on concept. I’m certifiably antisocial in that way. It’s not you, it’s me.
In the second place, I typically have a minimum forty-seven balls in the air at any given time so there is a fairly good chance that right now just isn’t a good time to talk. Please to leave me a message and I promise, I will call you back eventually unless your reason for calling is very important or time-sensitive and then I will certainly call back as soon as I hear the message.
BUT.
If you call me and:
1. I don’t recognize your number, and
2. you refuse to leave me a message until you’ve tried calling a dozen times** with no success, and
3. I do a reverse lookup on you which discloses very little additional information except that you called from Ladue (St. Louis) Missouri using a Verizon Wireless cell phone, then
4. it’s NOT me. IT’S YOU.
Which would render your voicemail bitchslap totally uncalled for and completely asinine but no hard feelings since you probably just ran out of prune juice or something and also HAVE A GREAT THURSDAY! JESUS LOVES YOU!
———–
* I have no little old men in my life. My grandfathers have both passed and Hugh Hefner only has my e-mail address.
** I checked my call log and the number of times I have received a call from the phone number in question equals exactly three. Which, for the record, equals ONE-QUARTER OF A DOZEN.
13 Responses to We interrupt our regularly scheduled post for a very important Public Service Announcement.
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My phone is like my email it seems, a magnet for unknown folks to send me text. Highly personal text sometimes…
He had the wrong number, of course. My dad will claim to have been calling me “all day,” which usually means 3 times in the last hour or so.
My voice DOES NOT sound like a little old man’s!
(HATE. PHONES. And now I have two. Blech.)
I hate talking on phones. That’s why I started my blog. Works great.
Dude. I think you live in my head….
Three cheers to the person who developed caller ID. It’s my favorite – I use it every day. I also loathe the fact that my in-laws don’t have it…. and we’re staying in their house for 6 weeks.
Thank goodness for answering machines!
Wow, It’s like you were speaking from my mouth. I NEVER answer the house phone (no caller id) and only answer the cell phone if it is someone I feel like talking to. And I prefer others to not answer when I call them, most things can be said through voicemail. My ex will play the I called you a dozen times, and I will shoot back with, but you didn’t leave one dame message! If it isn’t important enough to leave a message than don’t bother calling.
Question. When did you become me? This thing with the phone? Totally my position as well.
[...] My grandfathers have both passed and Hugh Hefner only has my e-mail address…. Source: We interrupt our regularly scheduled blog post for a very important Public Service Announcement. [...]
I get a lot of old geezers because our number is similar to a local doctor’s office. They even leave messages when my recording clearly states our residence. Drives me crazy!
I got two texts last week from some guy asking “Did I leave my had in your hotel room?” THEN: “DUDE! Did I leave MY HAT in your hotel room?”
The second time I politely texted back saying that I think he had the wrong cell #.
So then HE CALLED and asked for “Jip” (not sure on that spelling, I didn’t ask for clarification) and was actually pissed that I told him he had the wrong #. Brain damage. It’s a tragedy & far more widespread than anyone knows.
I never answer my land line (no caller ID) and always wait for the call to transfer to my cell phone. THEN only do I make the decision whether to pick up or not.
I get calls and text messages from all crazy people too. Once I got messages from this guy who thot he was texting his x-wife!! Man, talk about being bitter. Too bad I erased all those messages, would have made a great blog post.
I enjoyed your writing style and I’ve added you to my Reader. Keep these posts coming.