With AT&T moving to kill off its landline service in Illinois—after over the years raising its monthly bill for a line we rarely answered from about $30/month to close to $90/month for a line we lately never answer—I chose to jump rather than be pushed.
But I won’t unplug the kitchen hutch wall phone that has stored some 50 or so voicemail messages of recent years—many from family now passed—at least until I’ve digitized that audio for posterity.
But most of the calls we get these days aren’t for me. Most often the ring—or chirp or however you describe the sound modern phones make—now signals a call for my wife or my kids or my money. It’s just not worth leaving my wife or my kids or my money to get the phone.
If I had my way, we’d set the machine to answer immediately and save callers the trouble of waiting through four ringy-dingies.
For me, those four rings are torture. Every instinct, forged in the fires of adolescence, screams Answer the phone! But it’s just not like the old days, when the phone brought invitations to adventure or—in the days before my marriage—romance. Or when I had the energy to pursue adventure or romance.
So the spamsters wouldn’t be lonely and phone book archivists might have a chance to find us, I migrated our longtime (44+ years) analog phone number to a free Google Voice account for a one-time $20 fee. (It was slower and more complicated than that sounds, because it involved first porting the number to a soon-to-die-anyway free-trial Xfinity phone account. But it worked.)
And so I’ve spent the last few days nostalgically unplugging phones stationed around the house and bundling up all … those … cords.
But I won’t unplug the kitchen hutch wall phone that has stored some 50 or so voicemail messages of recent years—many from family now passed—at least until I’ve digitized that audio for posterity.I’d already saved some of it—somewhere—and seeking that file on my computer using the phrase “answering machine” time-warped me back to June 10, 1992, when I filed this column for the Wednesday Journal of Oak Park and River Forest about our first of these things.
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The answering machine: The next best thing to getting it yourself
I hardly ever answer the telephone at home anymore.
Nothing personal, I hope my friends and family understand. I always appreciate hearing from them.
I do answer the phone when everyone is home, awake, not eating, not wearing a poopy diaper and generally available to come to the phone. But that’s rare. Especially the diaper part.
So I let the answering machine get it. Chances are those who want my wife or my kids will leave a more accurate, informative message on the machine than I’d leave in my dilapidated scrawl. And those who want money will find the machine far more hospitable.
If I had my way, we’d set the machine to answer immediately and save callers the trouble of waiting through four ringy-dingies.
But my wife, tied to the old ways, insists on time to answer.
For me, those four rings are torture. Every instinct, forged in the fires of adolescence, screams Answer the phone! But it’s just not like the old days, when the phone brought invitations to adventure or—in the days before my marriage—romance. Or when I had the energy to pursue adventure or romance.
I’m sure some of our acquaintances are insulted to hear a live voice only after they’ve identified themselves to a machine. But, really, they should be flattered I’m abandoning the VC— er, the kids or a good book—to talk to them.
And, as for those whose calls I don’t pick up … Well, maybe we’re really not home, OK?
• Oak Parker Charlie Meyerson is the news director and morning newscaster on WNUA (95.5 FM) in Chicago. His column appears regularly in VIEWPOINTS. [At least when this was published June 17, 1992.]
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Back here in 2026, please know that my wife has over the years lost all interest in answering calls to that vintage phone number—but I sometimes enjoy mixing it up with the spam callers.
If you have strong feelings about AT&T’s abandonment of copper-line service—leaving customers reliant on cellular/internet network stability for voice communication—you’ll want to track Illinois legislation that would require the company to give its landline network a five-year reprieve.
