Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Saving Voicemail

Everybody does it at some time or another….the eternal voicemail.

You know the ones I mean. The attaboy from the Vice President, Your mom telling you that your dad’s surgery went ok, the one where your wife’s excited giddiness comes through the phone like she's screaming in a bullhorn as she tells you that she successfully negotiated Indianapolis traffic to arrive at the Mass Avenue Knit shop. (It was a solo field trip for her while I was in Joinery 2 at Marc Adams School of Woodworking back in 2007). FYI…I don’t think Gail even knew that I have kept that one.

My oldest saved voicemail is actually woodworking related. It’s from Bill W. at Penn State Industries, and it is from December of 2006. Now I would have to believe that Bill would never in his wildest dreams believe that some guy in Michigan still has his voicemail from Tuesday, December 19th 2006 saved on his cell phone, but I do. I probably haven’t listened to the whole message more than once or twice. However, every three weeks I get queried to erase it, and I spend about 2 seconds listening to Bill tell me that “they are upgrading me to a better dust can” before I hit the 9 button that saves that message for another 3 weeks.

I was redoing the dust collection in my shop over the Christmas holiday in 2006, and the fine folks at Penn State scrambled to get my cyclone system out to me in time for me to install it during my time away from the office.

It was nice that they upgraded me to a “better can” in order to keep my plan on schedule, but the reason I save that message is because installing that new cyclone was the last thing I worked on with my dog, Simon. Somewhere in the confused, cobweb filled part of the brain there is this belief that as long as that message stays on my phone, Simon and I are still together working on that cyclone.

I never would have imagined while stepping over Simon that day as I ran 6 inch pipe along the basement ceiling that his healthy 6 years of life were near an end. I suppose I was naïve. Simon died 4 weeks after Bill W. left that message.

I’m not quite as naïve as I was back then. That message is my ongoing reminder that life happens.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

My comment doesn't involve anything as sad as the loss of a pet. So don't think that I submit it as a comparison to you saving that voice mail. This is about the fact that we all hang on to some odd things from time to time that other people don't understand; but make sense to us.

I backed into my mom's car with my wife's van. I had to walk PAST my mom's car to get to the van. But backing out from a wide parking area into a narrower driveway, I never looked back and creamed mom's passenger door with my left rear quarter, light, hatch and bumper. Dumb, dumb, dumb. When I replaced the tail light assembly I hung the busted one on my garage wall. A dozen people have seen it and asked why, and the answer is easy. Anytime I notice it I'm reminded how quickly and how thoroughly I can screw something up with almost no effort.

Jeff Skiver said...

Jason,

Thanks for letting me know I am not the only dumbass in the world....

Also, I got more than one email today telling me my blog entry was a Downer.

So everyone should be happy to see that I have a new blog entry that clearly pulls us right back to the land of inappropriate humor that I am famous for.