To Answering Machine Messages

The ones we leave are best short, a quick, “Hey, it’s me. Call me.”

When we try to explain why we are calling, we go on too long: “Hey, it’s me. I was just wondering if you were heading out of town this weekend or not because I have two extra tickets to the game if you want to come. You can bring a friend; we were going to go out for dinner, but if that doesn’t work for you we could alwa [beeeeeep].”

We have to figure out if we call back and continue the message or let it go and hope it’s enough.

Talking to people who aren’t there gets complicated.

Especially if it's a hard call and we weren’t expecting to get the machine. We’ve worked ourselves up all day, worked up the nerve to say whatever bad news or let down or broken promise we have to say and after the fourth ring, we know what we will have to do, and we aren’t prepared.

“Hey, it’s me. Uhhh, listen, I was just calling because I was hoping to catch you. Maybe when you get this, call me. It’s not urgent, but we should talk soon. I’m home the rest of the day, but then tomorrow, I’m [beeeeep].”

We are bad at improv.

But we are worse at interpreting. We save the messages, even though we shouldn’t. We should let it go, be bigger than this. Move on. Surely we have better things to do with our time than listen to that damn message again.

We play it again. When we are sleepy and really should be in bed. We listen again. Was that a crack in the voice? Is there someone in the background? Is that sadness or relief? We imagine those lips near the phone, speaking so softly.