Hello?

SHE SAID:
Cooking dinner the other night got me thinking about crazy things... like answering the phone.

Tony can answer the phone and I can tell just who it is by his "hello". When it's his mom, it's kind of a singing hello. His "o" sound goes up and then drops back down. Like "hell-OO-oooo", the second set of "oooo" coming down a notch. When it's his brother or his dad, or any male calling, for that matter, it's more of a deep-voiced, (although still very pleasant) more of a manly-man sounding "hello", with the emphasis on the first syllable, and he does not carry out the "o" sound like with his mom and sister. That one sounds more like, "HEH-low". When his daughter calls, it's always a "hell-OOh" followed by a "what's up?"

I say "kudos" to Tony for even picking up the phone. I don't like to do that most of the time. I don't do messages or voicemail. I see when it says "missed call" and I will get back with people that way. When I was working, it seemed I spent half my day checking messages and getting back to people I had left messages with who would call me back when I was trying to call someone else back that called.. thus resulting in a little game I like to call "phone tag". Confusing, I know. Imagine how I felt living that conundrum. Tony gets so aggravated with me for not checking messages and not answering the phone. He doesn't understand that I kinda have to be in the mood to answer the phone. Most of the time, I don't have the TIME at the moment. I have more excuses if you really want to hear them.

Did I ever tell you about the time that I was cooking dinner and the phone rang and at precisely that moment, aliens came down and sucked me up into their spaceship? .... true story.

HE SAID:

That Maria was thinking about this while cooking my dinner should be alarming enough, but that she has listened to me answer the phone close enough to not only decipher the phonetics, but do a full tonal analysis of my hello's is a serious fright. I really didn't believe the alien story until just a moment ago.

But seriously, can you remember back when we didn't have caller ID? Back then you couldn't get in the right frame of mind according to who was calling. You just had to answer, and either put on a fake nicety, or let it all hang out. Of course you could let the answering machine get it. But then again, we can go back to a time before the answering machine. Back then they either called back or they didn't. That was serious call screening.

Well let's just have some fun and see how many can remember the last time they didn't have a cordless phone. Yeah, remember when you were tied to a wall with a wire? I hated talking on the phone when I was a kid. I am a pacer. I have to walk around when I have a phone conversation. I'm sure my parents had to buy new cords a few times.

Then of course there was the first "cell phone" I ever saw. It had a rotory and black handset inside a briefcase. I think it actually worked in about 10 places in the country.

Wait until Maria finds out I set up her voicemail. She's gonna love me for that!!!