January 24, 2013
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Worthiness
You may not know this, but my blogs are totally worth gift quantity and liveliness.
I know it’s true, because a commenter on my blog said exactly that earlier today. Granted, he commented on an old post, but I’m pretty sure my latest entries are just as worthy of gift quantity and liveliness.
Perhaps I would know more about this mysterious commenter if I had clicked on the link attached to his comment. It had an awful lot of letter z’s in the name, along with the words “Tips and Tricks.”
I wasn’t born yesterday, so I didn’t click. And I also blocked that user, even though he had a very generic, friendly sounding username. Those bots are getting more sneaky, huh? I suppose that’s ok, as long as they keep giving out such delightful compliments.
You know what doesn’t deserve a compliment? Our kids’ phone skills. Or lack thereof. They are 9 and 11 and they really have not improved much since the days when they would answer questions during phone calls with a nod.
When Professor Sister and I were kids, our parents had high standards for phone etiquette. I remember being mortified, because all the other kids could just pick up their home phones and say, “Hello?”
We had to say, “Hello, this is Turningreen. Who is this?”
Every. Single. Time.
It became second nature, so that it came out more like this: “HellothisisTurningreenwhoisthis?” in a sing songy voice. I thought I hated saying that more than anything in the world, until my friend who loved to copy me started saying it when she answered the phone. It turns out that hearing someone else idolize and imitate my forced dorkiness was even more distasteful.
Of course, the reason my parents had us do this was because of stranger danger. They wanted us to determine if the person on the other end of the phone was friend or foe. I get that now, as a parent, but sheesh was it dorky.
It would be pointless to have our kids answer the phone that way these days, because caller ID tells us who’s calling before we answer. Remember how wild and crazy it was to just blindly answer the phone? I suppose it doesn’t help that the Mr. and I respond to 95% of the calls to our house by not answering. That’s the whole point of caller ID, right? So you can avoid the charities and credit cards and PTA ladies looking for volunteers? When it’s family, the kids know it before they answer. When it’s an unfamiliar caller, they just hand it over to one of us so we can mute the ringer and roll our eyes in contempt for the cold callers.
So it’s on the rare occasion that they DO pick up the phone to speak to a family member, or call a friend to invite them over, that their phone skills become so painful. Recently, Professor Sister and I had the “opportunity” to hear our two sons speak to each other on the phone while on speaker. I believe Professor Sister summed it up well when she called it, “painfully awkward.” We are now encouraging texting between cousins so we don’t have to squirm with discomfort at their uncomfortable silences.
In a world of texting and email and parents who don’t answer the phone, I suppose this type of skill deficit is to be expected. Perhaps we could force the kids to practice making phone calls…..but yeah, I’m not going to do that. So if you’re reading this blog, and you someday find yourself on the phone with one of our kids…..I’m sorry.
And I truly hope that you don’t hold their awkwardness against the gift quantity worthiness and liveliness of my blog, because you shouldn’t.
Comments (4)
I’m kinda wondering why your parents had you identify yourselves because of stranger danger. For example, we were always taught NEVER to say our names and only to respond, “who is THIS,” if someone called and asked who we were.
@ordinarybutloud – Well, I meant the “who is this” portion of the sentence. I think the introduction was more of a social grace thing, and to help family members distinguish between us. 95%of our calls were from my grandma or aunt.
I used to talk on the phone just fine. Then we switched to a cell phone and I avoid speaking on the phone at all costs. I don’t text either. I e-mail and use facebook. I make meet up times and then I talk to people. Otherwise, no phone. On the rare occassion I’ll write a letter. I used to do that ALL the time. Now I just don’t.
BTW how are you with horror films? I just watched The Caller (2011) yesterday. That was a good scary movie and dealt with a phone. So good, I can’t believe nobody mentioned it to me. It’s suspense/horror not slasher.
People still talk on the phone? What is this, 2004 or something?