Since the beginning of time, actually the beginning of answering machines...little know factoid here... my voice reaches a tone, vocally, that disconnected peoples phones.
I'm not sure if I sounded like the 3, the 5, the pound key but sooner or later, in the midst of leaving a message, and not just at the end either, I disconnected.
At first I thought people were interrupting then disconnecting up their machines on me. Answering then disconnecting. I talk a lot, maybe they were doing the nasty and all they could hear was my blathering, blithering on.
As time passed, and technology became more sophisticated, voicemail replaced answering machines and it happened less frequently. And for a time, I forgot about it. Sure my Dad continued to complain that I always abruptly stopped talking but I chalked it up, with ageism, to his being the last minicassette holding device luddite. Sure occasionally I'd call my husband at work and mid sentence would find myself frustrated at his old Audex voicemail system. But never once did I suspect that my nemesis, my message foiling near perfect pitch was back. With a vengeance.
Until today.
I didn't correlate the uptick of instances of being cut off with so many my friends migrating away from verizon. Different systems respond to different tones...
Once a month? Maybe my cheek hit the phone. You missed the last part of the message? Maybe I was driving through a bad cell area. Occasionally I'd tentatively mention the pitch thing, only to be scoffed at. For eyebrows to raise. But now, today, I remembered vividly the early advent of the answering machine. And that my perky, cheery, LOUD voice is a dead on impersonator for the 7 key. And that very likely Kristen is NOT going to be happy with all three of my messages. Each sounding more depressed then the last. My not knowing which buoyant tone terminated the call. Quite literally killing the messenger.
Ah, if only I could mimic pin codes, I'd be all set.
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