Wait for the Beep

Aren't answering machines fun? We have a land line at our house mainly for use of the internet. Our downstairs phone is on the computer desk. The other phone is a desk phone with a fax and answering machine. Rarely does anyone call here. My daughter does occasionally. Most of the calls we get are hang ups or people looking for my stepdaughter who used to live here. I quit answering the phones because when I would tell the caller that she was either not here or no longer lived here they still called.

We also are on the no call list so we really don't get many useless calls. But it does not stop calls from companies with whom there is a relationship like the cable company, electric company, banks, etc. So it is not surprising that Amanda still gets a lot of calls. She gets a lot of calls about her bills or her bank. You would think these guys would get the message. But, most of them are automated calls. That is what makes the calls so funny. One day the answering machine had a message from a collection agency. As the message ended it said something like, "this has been a message from a professional debt collection agency. Thank you and have a nice day." For some reason the idea of a collection agency saying thank you and have a nice day struck me funny. It did seem to be a bit ironic too. Then again it was a recorded call , not a live person.

Then there are the other messages that leave me perplexed. I guess these are recorded too. They never seem to start the message after the tone. I wonder what " call and get the lowest rates now, before they go up" was about? The message started somewhere in the middle. I never heard the first part. Oh well, DELETE, click. Then there are the calls that want a response. Yeah well, don't expect one. Three numbers don't make a telephone number. I really love those. Who are you and why are you calling? Ever wonder why we don't call back?

This is why I have a love/hate relationship with my answering machine. My daughter hates it and yells into the phone Mom, Mom until I finally answer the phone. I still can't figure out why when she calls I run upstairs to answer the phone. I guess I go to all the extra trouble to run upstairs because I want to make sure I delete what was on the answering machine. The downstairs phone doesn't have caller ID, so I don't usually answer on that phone. That is probably why Annie yells at me. Is she trying to make me get enough exercise by running up the stairs? I have been known to run up the stairs to see who was calling only to have them hang up before I get there. Then of course there are so silly ones which never seem to come out as a whole message. I don't know who they are cause they never seem to get the whole message out. I can't call a partial number. Ha, ha. Like I would really go to that trouble. I could print out the journal of calls. But why bother? I have nothing to say to them anyway. Too bad technology has not figured out how to make an automated calling system leave a whole message. They never seem to listen to the instructions which tell a caller to wait for the beep. Ha! Let's see, think I'll delete them all! Should have waited for the beep.