Peace and Quiet

Try this. When you get home tonight, go to your telephone and after you listen to and delete all of your messages, turn off the answering machine. For good. You’ll be amazed at how much better your home life will be. Yeah I know, but you can do it. I learned this little kernel of truth quite by accident. About a week ago the power went off in our building for an extended period of time in the middle of the night. I don’t have a battery backup on my machine, so I lose the message function until I reset it and record another message. Well, I didn’t do that right away. And I finally realized what I had been missing. Peace and quiet when I get home. I was unconsciously dreading opening my front door knowing I would be greeted by the incessant beeps that told me I had messages. And yet I did not know what I could do. I wanted to come home, enjoy the peace and quiet, my family, and relax. But I always had messages. There it was…beep, beep, beep, beep. Every night. And it was never anything earth shattering. Usually something like this. “Hey Dave, sorry I missed you; I’ll try you on your cell” or “Hi Dave, guess you’re not there, catch ya later.” At the end of a long day at work, do you really want to come home and listen to more messages? From people that have already called you on every communication device you own, and have e-mailed to boot? The power outage freed me. But it took about a week before I realized it. Last night when my wife and I got home, we noticed the phone was not beeping. We had no messages. Because we had still had not reset the machine. And we looked at each other and it hit us, how nice it was not having messages waiting. I checked with my friends today. They’re still alive. I missed no important news, no big crisis. The world is okay. Everyone that needed to was able to reach me. Let’s face it, if it is a necessity, we can be reached. We all have cell phones, computers, and can be reached at work. We can get our e-mail sent to our Blackberrys or whatever other PDA we use. Give your home a break. Make it your sanctuary. Lose the machine, get your number on the do not call list, and then enjoy the sounds of silence when you get home after a long day at work. You and your family will be glad you did.