Phone Phobia

I was clearing the new messages off the answering machine and couldn’t help but laugh when I came to one that rambled on and on. No, it wasn’t my sister, who generally can’t remember the reason she’s called me after she’s dialed my number. And it wasn’t a salesman or political candidate, wanting me to hear their pitch. It was a tiny voice, that belonged to the nine year old friend of my son.

“Um, yeah….this is Peter…and, um, I’m wondering….um….I was thinking…um..”

Then a pause.

“Well, this is Peter…oh, yeah, I said that, didn’t I?.....I was wanting to talk to you….maybe we could play….at my place? (like he has his own pad)…um, yeah…”

It went on like this for a good five minutes. At one point he even seems to realize he’s rambling and says, “um….yeah…..well, I don’t know what I’m trying to say…”

This message, that took up most of my answering machine space, didn’t surprise me. I have three boys, the two older ones are teens. This is how boys talk on the phone. It’s like they don’t realize there’s another person on the other end of the line.

When I call home I’m lucky to get a few ‘yups’ and ‘nopes’ before our conversation ends. And I use the word conversation very loosely.

It was a blessing to have the visual of my son as we spoke via skype when he was in Brazil last year. I would have thought we’d lost our connection or he’d dropped into a coma, for the lack of response on his end of the call. Fortunately I could see him myself, sitting there in front of the computer, scratching his latest mosquito bite while his mom was trying to engage him in some dialogue. He’d spent the day water skiing and riding horses on the beach. It’s not like he didn’t have anything to talk about.

I guess it’s true, that thing about how women have so many more words to use up in a day than men do. Some days I think my boys might even be in the negative.

Especially if there had been any need for them to make or take a phone call.