Voice Mail Buffering

We all have our faults. Some of them – such as watching The Bachelor – can be addressed and perhaps even corrected, but some, unfortunately, will be with us forever. Of those that can’t be changed, the best you can hope for is that they’ll provide some form of entertainment to others.

One of my “forever” faults is that I’m terrible at leaving voicemails. This inability to piece together a coherent message after the beep is embedded deep in my DNA, to the point where I’m certain it can’t be fixed. The result is that anybody who listens to a message I’ve left them will have no choice but to shake their head and chuckle, wondering how I even manage to make it down a flight of steps without seriously injuring myself.

My main issue with leaving voicemails is that at some point in my life, I decided that the quality of a message is related directly to its length. A short message, even if direct and to the point, conveys a lack of caring, due to its abruptness, whereas a long, rambling message – whether it makes sense or not – shows that I’m taking the task seriously.

Let’s say, for example, that I wanted to leave somebody a message telling them to pick up milk and eggs. (I’m not sure why I’d ever leave that message, but I’d rather focus on a hypothetical rather than something that cuts closer to home, such as asking somebody to go my bail.)

One way to go about this would be to keep it simple: “Hey, can you pick up some milk and eggs? Thanks!” However, at least in my mind, this is a message of very poor quality. Here I am, heaping loads of responsibility on one's shoulders – trusting them with the sacred task of picking up milk and eggs – and yet I have the audacity to do it in only ten short words? How arrogant! How rude! How insensitive!

Instead, I’d choose to buffer out the message a bit, to try and convey how important this task is, how I’m trusting one of only a handful of people on the face of the earth capable of carrying it out correctly, and how appreciative I’ll be if said person is successful.

My strategy for buffering is where everything breaks down. (Or gets “shot to heck”, to put it in technical terms.) It consists mainly of repeating myself, just in case the unfortunate person listening isn’t able to comprehend it the first twelve times: “Hey, if you have time later today, would you mind picking up some milk and eggs? No big deal if you can’t, but it’d be nice to have some milk and eggs. Then I could do stuff that involves milk and eggs that, as of right now, I can’t do. That’s milk and eggs. Pick them up. If you can. I’d appreciate it. Milk. Eggs. Milkandeggsmilkandeggsmilkandeggs! M-I-L-K. E-G-G-S. Well, I gotta get going. Remember, milk and eggs. Call me if you have any questions about the milk and eggs.”

To make matters worse, I sometimes become aware that my message is getting ridiculously long and try to joke my way out of it by rambling even more, which is the equivalent of fighting a grease fire with water: “Hey, I just realized this message is getting a little long here! Sorry about that. But if you’re still listening, remember: milk and eggs. Ha-ha! As if I have to repeat myself again! But seriously, milk and eggs. This is important. Sort of.”

I’ve long since stopped feeling embarrassed after leaving a mammoth, semi-coherent message on somebody’s voicemail. Instead, I now just laugh at myself as I hit the END button. Wow, I think, that one was a real doozy! Probably Top Ten all time! I hate to be the poor sucker who has to listen to it!

So, be forewarned, if you ever see a voice message from me on your phone, brew a pot of coffee and prepare yourself for the long haul. But with any luck, instead of boring you to death, you’ll at least get a laugh or two out of it.

Alternately, you could just listen to the first sentence and then erase it, as the rest will undoubtedly be needless repetition. And don’t worry, I won’t be offended if you do. Just remember the milk and eggs.