Don’t call me; I’ll call you.
If you do call me, I won’t answer.
I never intended to quit answering the telephone. Time was, I’d run from wherever to catch the phone before it stopped ringing.
Now I simply don’t answer the telephone. Somewhere along the line I started switching off the phone so I could sleep as late as I liked without being interrupted.
I grew up believing that everything plastic breaks, so I was adamantly opposed to answering machines. I wasn’t just opposed-I was disdainful. Who, I asked, is so important that they have to have an answering machine?
Everyone I know, apparently.
Then the day came that a home answering machine was necessary for business.
I bought one. I dutifully recorded a speedy, uncute greeting. I sat back and waited for the machine to earn its keep.
At first, if I was home when the phone rang, and if I was in the mood to talk, I answered the phone in person, even though my machine was standing by.
One day I realized that I don’t ever have to answer the phone again.
I always return business calls. And when my friends call, of course I call them back.
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Now I am considering changing the recording on my answering machine. I can’t take credit for this message. I read it several years ago in “Sylvia,” Nicole Hollander’s delightful comic strip.
If I recall correctly, it was a one-panel strip. Sylvia’s cats are listening in as this message plays for a caller:
“No one is home to take your call right now. At the sound of the beep, hang up.”