Oh, there you are, Judy. Why didn’t you ever call me back?”
My friend seemed rather cross with me. I didn’t know what could be wrong. “What are you talking about? When did you call me?”
“Months ago! About starting up a new book group! Remember? You said you’d be delighted and you’d wait for my call? And then….Nothing!”
“Are you sure you had the right number?”
“Of course I’m sure. It was obviously your voice, saying to leave a message. Don’t you ever check your messages?”
“Well, um, no, not really.”
“Then why do you even have a voice mail account?”
That’s a good question. I’ve never really gotten along with voice mail.
I use it, sure; in this day and age, who can actually get away with not having it? If only I had won that Powerball, I would hire one personal assistant each, for every device I have!
But the closest I ever got to that was when I had teens still at home, who could help me put a picture on Facebook, or find a Solitaire app for my computer.
Now, all I can do is hang out in the library’s computer room: “Psst, kid, you want some Tollhouse cookies?
Just please, help me delete this app from my phone….”
It was bad enough when messages were recorded on actual, physical answering machines.
At least that was technology I could understand. But what does a “voice mail” look like?
When I finally got home after encountering my angry friend, I went to my house phone and played my messages.
All 23 of them.
Yes, there was that message about the book-group. But there were also a slew of pre-recorded messages from local and county officials, about various snow storms.
There were older ones, from the same officials, about hurricanes. And there were some messages, older than those, telling me to vote for those officials. All of those recordings are the very reason I don’t pick up my messages any more. There was also a message from someone I knew in college.
He was in town for a book signing, and of all the people in New York, he was inviting me to join him for drinks at the Friars Club!
But I never got the message.
My own mother knows not to leave messages on my home phone’s voice mail, any more. She calls my cell phone, instead. But lately, that’s been filling up, too. I tried emptying it. But that creates other problems.
For one thing, when in a busy day can you deal with old voice mail?
Not till the day is done, and everyone else is asleep.
So you find yourself stabbing, with big clumsy fingers, at various points on the i-Phone’s flat surface:
“Select Voicemail. Now: Play Message. Ugh, not with Speaker, just Play.
Okay, that’s the blizzard recording for the seventh time — Delete. Delete. Delete the next one, too.
Oh, that one was my husband’s boss, calling my cell number during the blizzard when my husband didn’t answer.
Don’t Delete — just Save that to Information. No, no, no, not Call Back!”
And all of a sudden in the middle of the night, I’m on the phone with a very groggy person going “Whaaah??? Who is this?”
“Never mind!” I quickly hang up. Knowing all the while that later, they will look at that call and see my number, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Which is one reason I never attempt to delete my voice mail.
But there’s another, even more important reason.
There are a lot of messages I just can’t bring myself to erase — like my son, calling about some middle-school crisis, his voice so young I always mistake him for his younger brother.
Or the younger brother, excited about a Science Olympiad win.
Or like all the friends and relatives who called when each child was born, saying “Welcome to the world, baby boy!”
That was on a cassette I salvaged when we finally threw out the broken answering machine.
What will I ever play that back on? Even worse — how will I eventually keep those other important “voice mail” messages?
Because they don’t really exist on a machine, at all, except whatever constitutes the electronic mind of Verizon (and Apple) Voice Mail.
And in the meantime, what do I tell people who want to reach me?
Maybe I’ll take my mom’s advice: “Get a third phone, sweetie, just for the people you really want to hear from. And call me back. BEEP!”
