In the Era of the iPhone and Wasted Voicemail

(Source)

When I was a kid we had a machine known as an 'Answering Machine', it was a little box with a tape in it, and whenever someone would call us, it would pick up after a few rings and play a prerecorded message. The person would then leave a message -the nifty part was that while he spoke we could listen to the message being recorded on the answering machine. This led to call screening, which meant that if one didn't want to speak to someone, they merely needed to not pick up.

Since this would happen from time to time, people that knew they ought not to be screened (or at least thought that they ought not to) would leave long loud messages, in the hope of getting our attention so that we would pick up the phone.
They often went something akin to this:

"Hello? Hello? Is anyone there? Hello? Well, I guess because not. Anyhow, this is Yankel calling. Hello? Still not there? bye."

Thank G-d, in this modern era of iPhones, BlackBerries, Global Warming, Barack Obama and other wonders of technology we've advanced to a new level of communications -missed calls show up on the screen of the cellphone. What is more, voice mail is no longer played over a speaker from a little tape.

Yet despite these miracles of modern science, people seem to have not yet evolved to the next level of leaving messages on a cell phone.

I leave my phone in my jacket for half an hour or so, to come back and find five missed calls and five messages -all from the same person.

Dialing my voicemail -which involves entering in my password, listening to the voice prompt, pressing one for new messages and then listening to the them- I hear:

"Hello? Hello? Is anyone there? Hello? Well, I guess because not. Anyhow, this is Sruli calling. Hello? Still not there? You're late for Seder -get off your blog! Well . . . umm bye."

Some things never change.


Note: After writing this, frankly, I don't think it fits with the standards of a Humor Post on this Blog -take a look at Mottel and the Cell . . . Now that's a funny post.
Sorry.

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