Answering the Land-line Phone, and Other Risky Behavior
Today is election day which means that tomorrow, I won’t have to listen to any more political adds (I thought yesterday would be the last day, but no.) After today, when my land-line phone rings, it probably won’t be a political pollster or candidate soliciting my vote. Of course, I rarely answer the land-line phone, anyway; too risky. I don’t have caller-id, so when it rings and I say, “Hello,” I am at the mercy of the caller, wondering how long I’ll be stuck listening to them talk about their stuff. (If they are calling me, they don’t want to hear about MY stuff). Sometimes I forget, and answer, like I did the other day. “Hello?”
“Hello, this is Bill Clinton…”
“Oh, hi!” I said. “How are you?” I know, I know, it’s a knee-jerk statement, one that begs him to tell me all his stuff.
“I’m calling on behalf of blah, blah, blah,” he said.
Actually, he didn’t say blah, blah, blah, he said something else, but I stopped listening when it was clear that he wasn’t going to ask how I was.
“Yeah, ok whatever, listen, Bill?”
He just kept on talking, telling me more of his stuff.
“Ok, I see where you’re going with this–you want me to vote for somebody.”
“I hope you will join me, and vote for blah, blah,blah…”
“Yeah, that’s what I said, if you were listening to me!”
Still, he kept yakking, so I thought, OK, I’ll just let him say what he has to say and then maybe he will be quiet for two seconds so I can talk. But when he was done, he just said, “Goodbye,” and then hung up! I am not kidding, this actually happened! I am SO not calling him back.
As soon as I hung up, the phone rang again, and I thought, this must be the apology call, to say that ever since the Monica Lewinski debacle, he had to be careful about calling girls. I let the answering machine get it, I didn’t want him to think I was waiting.
“Hello, this is your mother. Are you screening your calls? If you are, pick up!”
“Hi, Mom…”
“So, you are screening your calls,” she said as though this was a personal affront. Never mind that I did pick up, to talk to her. She was pissed over all the times that I didn’t pick up; times when I truly was not home. I have to remind myself that Mom grew up in a time when a ringing phone was always answered. You dropped everything and ran to get it. Then you stood there facing the wall, because that’s as far as the chord went. There was no such thing as caller-id, call waiting, or voicemail. Of course I grew up with same set of circumstances, but quickly adapted when technological advances made it possible to decide whether or not a call should be answered. According to my mother, this makes me a snob.
Mom doesn’t know that I suffer from fear of getting stuck listening to someone I don’t want to listen to syndrome. It’s terrible, and even though the phone went portable over thirty years ago, I still feel tethered to the wall when I’m in that situation. I can’t seem to tell people that I have things to do; that I have to go.
Mom and I talked but when I heard the beep of call-waiting, I told her I had to go, another call was coming in. “Hello,” I said, once again forgetting that I did not know who I was going to get stuck listening to.
“Hello, this is Hillary Clinton…”
Click.
Funny how quickly I got over my syndrome. Like I need that kind of trouble.
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I love having caller ID. I got it about five years ago when I switched to Charter. I can identify with everything you said about screening calls so that you don’t get stuck talking to someone for hours that you don’t have time to talk to. And you don’t have to listen to those annoying political adds or have to take a phone survey for the hundredth time.
My sister used to call me in the good old days before caller ID and we would answer the phone and then regardless of the fact that we had rented a movie and we wanted to watch it; I would have to talk to her for an hour or two every single evening. So we would pause our movie and wait for the conversation to finish.
My sister had OCD and as soon as I would hang up she would call me right back because she forgot to tell me something. If I tried screening her calls she would keep calling the answering machine and keep talking and leaving messages until it ran out of tape.
I also have a brother who screens his calls and then calls me back so I know how your Mom feels. Hang in there Dawn, your mother raised a beautiful, strong and independent daughter and she knows it. She just feels insecure about her relationship with you. She needs to feel that she is important enough that when she calls and you are home that you will answer her call.
I once made the mistake of letting a local politician use my office for phone-banking purposes after hours, (forgetting that everyone they called would see my company name on their caller ID.) I got a lot of nasty calls from former friends and clients who thought for sure that I was somehow behind the fact that they were interrupted during dinner or missed the best part of the TV show they were watching.
As one person said “I only picked up because I thought it was you. I would not have picked up if the caller ID said it was the Mayor calling!”
It’s so hard to imagine those low-tech days when (literally) every one of my 7 siblings RACED to the phone to answer it. What was the point? It was usually your mom calling my mom. (and even more likely the reverse scenario on your end.) Now, you couldn’t pay my kids to answer the land- line; they each have their own cell phones and obviously that’s where the people they care to talk to will be calling. Did I say “talk to?” Excuse me. Text with. As for the caller ID, our teen years would have been ruined if it existed then, considering we spent the majority of them making crank calls. Thankfully, there were no internets then; imagine (Nanci) the trouble we’d have gotten ourselves in to.
Dawn, This is your best post yet. I laughed so hard. Thank you for making me smile. Kim
This was the best yet – I’m forwarding it to a few family members!