Some ranting on phones

I’ve spent the last couple of days trying to figure out why, in this age of digital cell phones, with nationwide travel capabilities and unlimited long distance, I still have a land line in my apartment. I’ve noticed that a bunch of friends of mine don’t even have them anymore and only use their cell phones.

Not only do I rarely call from my home line, but I rarely check my home voicemail. I decided today that maybe it would be a good idea, and upon dialing in got a lovely message from my Grandmother wishing me a happy birthday from October, and a message dating back to September from a client asking for an urgent call back – something about a drug being withdrawn from the market.

People tend to call me on my cell phone anyway – even if they are one of the five people who actually have the number, they know that home or not, they can reach me on my cell. I’m beginning to think that the only reason I have a home phone so that my mother can call my cell, and when I don’t pick up, she has a second number to leave the exact same message on.

And while I’m on the topic, I just want to share that I think there’s a special layer in hell reserved for people who can’t leave a proper message when they get voicemail. You know the people I’m talking about – the people who either can’t tell you why they’re calling in the first place or leave you the exact same message every time they call. You can even say it along with them when retrieving the message. My personal favorites are the people who leave a long, slow, drawn out message – that is until they get to the part where they leave their number – then they race through it so you have to listen to the whole bloody thing over again in hopes of catching it the 32nd time around.