Wait For The Beep

Like every other person on the planet, I have those things which are so small they shouldn't bother me at all, yet they bother me more than the things which most people would consider far more important. I think it has to do with the mindset that insignificant things shouldn't be causing problems at all, which makes the problems they do cause feel extra annoying. This is the same thing that makes me not get mad when my iPod starts acting up, but really pissed when the attached headphones I bought at the Dollar Store do. Another example is that one my biggest peeves is when my various appliances are displaying some type of odd message. I make no secret that I like things the way I like them and I can't stand it when there is suddenly a red light, a blinking 12:00 or worse, nothing, where there used to be a simple display. (As you probably could have guessed, power outages totally ruin my day.) That is why you can imagine how much it was bothering me that for an entire week the phone connected to my landline was displaying a message which insisted I had a voicemail waiting for me. No matter what button I pressed I could not get this message to change. Only adding only to my frustration is the fact that as far as I knew, I didn't even have voicemail on that phone.

See, I still have an answering machine for the landline. I like being able to see if I have a message from across the room. [Confession time: it is also because I have visions of coming in, pressing play on the machine while I go to the fridge to get a drink and while the first two messages are some mindless reminders (probably a video store and a telemarketer) third message will be from a long-lost friend who needs my help getting out of a dangerous situation and I am the only one they can turn to. This shocking message will lead me to dropping a container of milk, which I will obviously be drinking directly from... I watched a LOT of movies during the 80s.] My answering machine is also cool because, in the ultimate lazy-man concession, the message will play on any of the connected phones, so I don't even have to go downstairs to hear them. Also, I like that it is just the one step to hear my messages. There is no dialing of a third number and entering a passcode. When the message are as silly as the ones I usually get there is really no need to make it complicated to retrieve them. This made all the digging I was doing to figure out my voicemail issue seem like homework.

It took a fair amount of investigating but I eventually discovered that, even if you don't ask for it, voicemail is part of the cable/internet/phone package. I still don't know exactly how someone would get to leave a message there instead of on the machine, but I assume is has to do with me not answering my call-waiting. According to someone who has the same cable bundle, I should have known what was going on by the way my phone had three quick pauses in the dial-tone when I first picked it up. (Silly me, I just assumed it had something to do with bad service.) I finally managed to track down a number to call to get to my voicemail inbox, but my confusion only deepened as the first thing I had to do before I would be allowed to hear my messages was complete five steps to set up my voicemail, including recording a greeting and whether I wanted a personal message or the generic recording to play. Now I want to know what the people who left me these messages heard when they called. I'd like to think it was a pre-recorded message, but for all I know it was silence followed by a beep. Also, you're probably curious as to what these messages were and whether the effort was worth it. Of course it wasn't.

The first message was an automated recording about an event which happened over a week ago and the second message was a person trying to sell me something (hope it wasn't a limited time offer). Not exactly the shocking or life-changing message I was hoping for. The only good part of it was that after I was done and I had hung up the phone the "New Voicemail" display finally went away and my phone went back to telling me what time it is. I guess in the grand scheme of things, that is all the victory I can hope for because I certainly won't be ditching my new-found voicemail in exchange for my usual answering machine. Now I just need to find a way to make sure anyone who calls when I am not around gets routed to there and not to the voicemail. (Considering I rarely miss a call I shouldn't be losing sleep over it.) Either way, the good news for you is that you don't have to worry about it. If I don't answer just wait for the tone and do your thing - I'll take it from there. The real purpose of this post is to let you know that if you've called my house and left a voicemail in the past and I didn't called you back it wasn't because I was ignoring you, it's because I didn't know the message was there. At least, that's the excuse I'm going with.