Please Leave Your Name At the Beep

“I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.”
— Stuart Smalley

Back when I first moved into an apartment on my own, around 21 years old, I didn’t have an answering machine. This was around 1988-89, and answering machines were not ubiquitous like they are now. Many homes/families had one, but they were still relatively new. The very first message I ever left on an answering machine, when I called my best friend, whose family had just gotten one, was of our toilet flushing. Yes, it was as funny as I thought it would be.

The first few months in my own apartment, I kept thinking about all the calls I was missing without an answering machine. So I saved up some cash to buy one. I was very excited when I hooked it up and left my outgoing message — I expected to never miss a message ever again.

No one ever left a message. Either no one was calling while I was out, or no one cared to say anything when I personally didn’t answer their call. I couldn’t believe no one was calling me. Come on! Why was no one calling me? I got calls while I was at home. Eventually I came to accept that the answering machine was a waste of money — I wasn’t missing any calls while I was out. I just wasn’t as popular as I had deluded myself to believe.

With my old blog set up, I knew people wanted to comment on my posts, but with my simple HTML page arrangement, they couldn’t. So I finally got around to setting up some real blogging software, with lots of functionality (like comments), because I wanted to read all the comments I knew people wanted to make on my posts.

Just like with my first answering machine, I’m discovering that no one really is wanting to talk to me. Although, unlike with the early answering machine, I can actually tell that people do come here and read the blog. So I can keep deluding myself that this blog is a popular read.

[Actually, I don’t mind. I’m not writing all this stuff and junk to get comments. It’s just that the comparison to my old answering machine situation was funny.]

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com