Rants and Ramblings: random commentary about culture, media, politics, technology and whatnot.

happy birthday to you

Ah, voicemail, how I hate thee.

I don't leave good voicemail messages. I ramble. I'll substitute slow "ummmmms" in place of key information that I've momentarily forgotten, only to panic at how painfully bad my message probably sounds and rapid-fire blurtouteverythingelseIhadtosay in a sad attempt to get off the phone as quickly as humanly possible. The result: When my friends call me back, they inevitably say something like, "I got your message, but it was all garbled and I couldn't make anything out."

Tonight, I tried to call my dad to wish him a happy birthday. He'd been out of town for the past few days, so I called his cellphone. And got the voicemail.

"Hi, Dad. It's Alyson. I wasn't sure if you were back home or still in Illinois, but I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday and say I hope you have a great day today ... Of course, the day's almost over, so I hope you had a good day ... with the celebrating and all ..."

At about this point, the voicemail system cut me off mid-ramble, and when the voice offered me the chance to erase and re-record my message if only I pressed "3," I felt a glimmer of hope that I could somehow salvage this call. So I pressed "3."

And there was silence.

After a few seconds, the voicemail system spoke up again. "Are you stiill there?" the voice asked. She then repeated my options: Save my message, listen to my message or re-record my message. I pressed "3" again and launched into my new-and-improved birthday message.

"Hi, Dad. It's Alyson. I just wanted to wish you a happy birth--"

"Are you still there?" the voicemail chimed in again. She read my options again.

I pressed the "3" button emphatically.

"Hey, Dad. It's Alyson. I just wanted to say hap--"

"I'm sorry you're having trouble," the voice said sympathetically. "Your message has been saved."

Curses.