And that’s why I didn’t leave you a message

I have it on good authority that I leave bad voicemails.  The kind you never want to listen to.  The kind that go on and on.  And on and on.  And on and –   They don’t have any redeeming qualities, unless you really enjoy the sound of my voice.  I don’t do it on purpose, I really don’t.  In fact, most of the time I don’t leave a message at all.  I figure you’ll notice you missed my call, and you’ll call me back when you feel like it. That’s how I handle missed calls.  And when you leave me a voicemail, if I can see who it’s from, I usually call you without listening to it anyway.  Sometimes, though, I can’t resist the siren song of the beeeeeeeeeeep.  I go in with the best of intentions – short and sweet.  “Just calling to say hi, call me when you can.  Nothing urgent.  Bye.”  But somehow I get off track.  Like as soon as I start talking.  “Just calling to say hi, call me when you can.  Nothing urgent.  But it’s been a while since we talked.  Not that I have anything in particular to talk about.  Huh – sounds like I don’t want to talk to you.  But I do!  Still not urgent, though.  I know you’re busy.  I’ll stop rambling now,  I know you hate that.  You’re probably not listening to this anyway.  Who listens to voicemails anymore, now that every phone ever has caller ID?  Right, no rambling.  I don’t know why I have this problem.  [long pause]  Great, now you have dead air in the middle of this message.  That wasn’t important in the first place.  Gah!  Hanging up now.  Jesus, what a terrible message.  Why can’t I hang up?”  Seriously, I’ve probably left that exact message on someone’s voicemail.  Hopefully, no one listened to it. Delete, delete!