The Challenge of Answering

On Thursday, when all the kids were home from school sick, I was sitting at the computer working on something while the children watched a movie. On Wednesday afternoon, I made a mad dash to the library and checked out 3 movies, suspecting we may have a problem on Thursday. And boy was I thankful I had.

So, I'm on the computer, Deanna's laid out on the loveseat with her foot elevated, Daelyn's sitting with her, and Dane's plopped on the floor, all entranced with some movie when the phone rings.

"Deanna, can you get it, please," I ask, hard at work and not willing to be disturbed just yet.

The phone rings again. Then again. Finally, Daelyn snatches it from the recharger.

"Shesus wuvs hue," he says, undistinquishable to anyone except family members as "Jesus loves you", our family phone greeting. There's a pause and then he says, "No, I'm sorry. She's in the bathtub."

"GIVE ME the PHONE!!" I shout and reach quickly, trying to snatch it out of his hand. But he's quicker than me and dodges quite adeptly, giggling.

"Son, give me the phone this minute!!! Who's on it?" I ask, trying to pressure him into compliance. When I finally manage to retrieve it, the caller turns out to be my sister.

"Just how many hours a day do you spend in the tub?" she asks.

I don't know what's wrong with my children. When we were little, we had huge pile-ups in front of the phone anytime it rang. Everyone ran for it at the same time, considering it an honor to be the winner who claimed the prize of announcing, "Hello. Hunt's residence." At my house, the phone rings, and I'm the only one running. I've had to jump out of the tub, naked as a jaybird, and sprint for the phone because I'm expecting an important call only to discover the entire remainder of the family sitting within arm's reach. My children have no desire whatsoever to answer the phone. And the truth is, it's scary when they do. Deanna takes messages incorrectly, Daelyn always guesses as to who the caller is and reports the wrong person to me, Dane answers and then gets distracted and forgets to pass the phone along and the caller sits and listens to cartoons while Dane holds the phone in his hand, waiting for commercials to deliver it.

The other day, Deanna and Daelyn were both sitting on the loveseat - RIGHT NEXT TO THE PHONE - when it rang. I yelled from the other room for someone please to answer it. It rang 4 times and then clicked over to the answering machine. I came tearing into the Den from the laundry room as Deanna was just reaching for it - about 30 seconds into the answering machine greeting.

"There's no one there, Mama," she claimed, accusingly - as if I had some maniacal plan to force her to answer the phone when no one had really called.

"That's because they got the answering machine and hung up, Deanna," I screeched. "If you answered it before the answering machine picked up, you may have more luck."

But my rants are wasted. They just don't care. They turned out to be more like Don than me. He says I'm a slave to the phone. He's so extremely the opposite that having a phone in the home is somewhat of an inconvenience for him.

I even changed the greeting on our answering machine once to say, "We're probably home and just haven't picked up the phone yet, so leave a message and we'll call you RIGHT BACK." People find this so hard to believe, they hang up without leaving a message, assuming anyone sitting right next to the phone would answer. And for some reason, our Caller ID never seems to pick up these calls.

Another time this week, Daelyn tried answering but knocked the phone off the back of the table. Then he and Dane began the process of trying to reach it. They stretched from the loveseat, then they decided they needed to move the table out of the way. About 5 minutes later, they retrieved the phone.

"Give it to me!" I yelled, "there might still be someone on it."

Dane: "Oh, Mama, of course nobody's on it. It's been too long..."

I snatched it from him anyway, and as it approached my ear, I heard laughing.

"Hello?? Hello," I yelled into it. "Is anyone there?"

My sister's voice (yes, the same one from the bathtub conversation), "What's wrong with you people?"

So, if you call our house and don't get an answer, hang on and be patient. We'll get around to answering eventually.