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!