carrier pigeon
I am sitting at my desk enjoying a quiet house (nursing a big hangover – yes, never a good idea to do tequila shots after midnight) and, out of the corner of my eye, I can see the answer phone winking at me.
Now I wonder if this strikes you as odd; I am not even curious as to who has left me/us a message. In fact, it might take me hours or even days for me to get around to listening to it. But, on the other hand, my life draws to a standstill every time an email, direct tweet, blog comment or Facebook message flashes up in front of my eager eyes. What has happened to what we used to call the ‘landline’, the poor relation to the fist full of technology we are never more than an arm’s reach away from? And why is it dropping off our message radar?
The answer is probably simple; replying to an answer phone message takes us longer. First we have to wait for the machine to spit the message out, then a wait of at least another 5 seconds before it can be deleted and then… we have to call back our message leaver. The whole process feels tedious. Our grandparents would never have considered this process to be longwinded but channels of communication have gone berserk over the last decade, leaving us all unhealthily frazzled and impatient.
Now, back to that message. Full apologies if it is from you. Next time, just send a carrier pigeon.
