I called Ryan today, I didn't leave a message because he never listens to them, he sees that I've called and just calls me back. This made me think about growing up with one phone in a house of 10. There were no cordless phones, call waiting, caller ID, call forwarding or message machines. If someone said they were going to call, that meant they were going to call and you had better be home or you might miss their call. And if they didn't call you could be sure they would hear about how you waited for their call and they never called. They use to fib, "I called and it was busy" or "no one answered". And you knew that they probably called during the 5 minutes when your sister was on the phone. You would then be this annoying person and call them and ask, "did you try to call? I was just checking because my sister was on the phone". Never could you wander more than 4 to 6 feet from the phone, depending on how new the cord was and if it was new you could be sure you would be pulling the phone off the stand all the time because the cord wasn't broken in yet. Mom and Dad were always in ear shot of your conversations, they knew and got to talk to all your friends when they called. Sharing a phone meant that you could not have any long conversations because someone was always waiting for a call and you couldn't tie up the line. A busy signal was so annoying, it meant someone was at the home where you called and talking to someone else. You just had to keep dialing (no redial, and remember that they were rotary phones). When I was little I remember having to memorize our phone and the prefix was TU, which was 88. But I didn't know that and when I got lost at the mall and they asked my number I said TU1-5555. And she kept repeating you mean 88, I cried and said NO!
I just recently signed up for a phone number that I can have forwarded to any phone anywhere I want for the rest of my life. No more changing numbers with every move we make! So give me a call, I will forward my phones to my cell phone and if I am on the phone, leave a voicemail or don't, I will still see that I have missed a call and call you back anyway.