Some people think I am obsessively clean. However you readers know this to be wrong, because I am sensational and therefore cannot be ‘too much’ of anything. Take the following example, my apartment has a bug problem. Every so many weeks or months I find bugs running all over my apartment. I call them water bugs, but really have no idea what they are. They have about a two centimeter long and thin body, with two long antennas, and a few feet. They don’t do anything other than run around. And I have no idea where these creatures come from. Typically I find them in my bathroom with a high percentage in the tub, hence the name water bug. I’ll get rid of them, and won’t see any for a stretch of time, and then out of the blue I’ll find a bunch. Such as last night, when I found two running around on the floor in different locations. So clearly I am not too clean.
But what really bugs me (like fingernails on a chalk board that transition is) are answering machines. The reason I don’t like them is because I hate the sound of my voice. In my head it is fine, when I hear it recorded, and apparently the way everyone else hears it, it sounds terrible. Fortunately we live in an age where there are all sorts of other ways to leave messages. For example, there are text messages, e-mail, and Facebook messages. I’m not a huge fan of text messages, because I’m very wordy and they take too long to type or simply don’t fit in the allotted space. So usually I resort to Facebook or e-mails if I find myself needing to get a message to someone that I can’t talk to over the phone. If those two avenues are not available then I hope the person checks their caller ID. Usually what I have to say is not worth the pain of leaving a voice message. I want no audio recording of my voice.
Whenever I need to make a call that seems worthy of leaving a voice message, without fail it will go to the message client. There are all sorts of reasons why I may feel a message is needed. Last night I was just checking up on a friend I thought might want a call. Whereas on Sunday I called Stacy to go out for ice-cream. In the first case a text message would have been too long. And in the second Stacy doesn’t seem to receive texts.
Both times I very begrudgingly I left a message. Now in the good ole days, you had one shot and that was it. But nowadays you’ve got the ability to play it back and re-record. And not only that you can send it urgently or regularly. It’s enough to make me have a heart attack. We’ll forget the message itself. I’m sure you’re imaginative enough to understand why I hate it. But just think of the two ways to send the message. For example, suppose I was trying to call a girl to go out for dinner. If I send it urgently then I might come off as desperate. But if I send it regularly I have no idea when it will get over there and maybe we’ll have missed out on the opening. Now mix that with the message. Maybe I think the message sounds desperate. Then in that case maybe I should send it regularly to offset the desperate nature of the message. But maybe the girl I’m calling sees it’s me calling and doesn’t pick up because my charms make her all a flutter and she can’t ready herself in the 30 seconds she has before it goes to the message client. Well if I take forever re-recording my message, even if it doesn’t sound desperate and only nasally and mumbly (stupid voice of mine) and send it urgently then maybe she’ll be able to tell that I must have re-recorded it a bunch because it took too long to send it urgently if only 1 message had been recorded, but not long enough for it to have been delivered regularly. And in doing so, my attempts at hiding my anxiousness will have been foiled. Of course all of this could probably be determined by comparing the time-stamp on the caller ID to the time the voice message was received.
This is why I like writing things down. When I read it back to myself I get to use the voice I hear in my head which is cool, calm, and collected, not nasally, whiney, and mumbly.
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