From Mindspillage

Ageless

I don't really sound like myself on the phone; when I'm trying to be more articulate (to be understood over a bad connection, for example) my voice is more girlish, and higher than its usual low mezzo pitch. However, my friends assure me there is no way I sound young enough to need mommy to come to the phone.

I hate talking on the phone even when not annoyed, so it peeved me when the caller looking for my aunt couldn't be convinced I wasn't her grade-school spawn. I told him I was the only one available and I would take a message... he kept asking me to repeat things back to him, somewhat patronizingly and unsurely, as if I were so young I'd have trouble writing down information on a notepad. I was too focused on trying to get the information he'd called for; I should have just hung up.

Oh so quiet

Once after an orchestra concert, I was riding back in a friend's carpool, the fourth person in the car. As soon as we get in, the other person in the backseat gets on his cell phone and starts blabbing. OK, fine, maybe he told someone he'd call after he got out. Then the driver gets a phone call, and takes it. The girl in the front seat shortly afterward decides that she, too, has a call to make, and I am left staring out the window for the 45-minute ride. Which generally I don't mind, and I'll often do anyway, but all three of them on the phone the whole time?

After we got out, the one I was least familiar with said to me, "wow, you're so quiet; you should talk more."

Priority

I hate when I'm in the middle of talking to someone and that person gets a call... then proceeds to hold a full conversation, without bothering to tell the person on the line that she was in the middle of talking to someone else. Not just a few minutes of "hey, how are you doing" either, but half an hour of shooting the breeze. Worst is when it's in the car, because I'm stuck there; if I'm just hanging around somewhere, I'll walk away.