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 | in which we observe telephone etiquette |
Owen spent much of his day telephoning his buddy Ella. She wasn’t at home.
Some of the times he left messages. (“Hi Ella, this is Owen. I am calling for Ella. Ella, please call me back. It is Owen. I love you! Bye-bye!”) Other times he hung up angrily on her answering machine, possibly shouting, “SHE’S NOT THERE!” first.
She called back this evening, and they had a nice back-and-forth conversation (pretty impressive when you’re two and three). The parts of the conversation I understood involved their making plans to get together tomorrow, discussing the weather forecast, and telling each other to sleep well. There was other stuff I didn’t catch.
So at dinner I asked, “What did Ella have to say tonight?”
Owen considered the question, then replied: “She said, ‘Hello, Owen.’”
Ah, men. Mine is so economical with words (and selectively deaf) that the phrase, “what did you say?” has become a simple, “Said?” Nicholas, take your plate to the kitchen please. Looks up from Lego catalog. “Said?”
My daughter is 6, and is just starting to get into the groove of the long, pointless, but oh-so-important phone calls with her friends. And I’ve realized just how bleak and empty this phase of her life will be, with cordless phones instead of being able to wrap the long curly phone cord around her finger. Poor kid.
How stinkin’ cute he’s having phone conversations! I don’t even have those.
Now that is classic!