Leave a message, I'll get back to you. Maybe. Probably not.

The red light on my newsroom phone is like a railroad signal alerting me to bad times. I’m about to get plowed over, it tells me, or at the very least, inconvenienced.

Messages left on the newsroom phone are generally not good. It’s little Sally Who calling to bellyache because I wrote up her Pa for that 7-Eleven robbery and man is just misunderstood. Or a police chief demanding to know which of his loose lipped officers ran his gums about an ongoing investigation now chronicled on the front page. Or the town manager demanding that I stop referring to his village as East Eye Socket in my columns.

More often, it’s someone who wants me to write a story with a giant headline, the size of the one used when Kennedy was assassinated, because he pays  too much child support. Or a kindly old woman who wants to know why I haven’t written about her third grade granddaughter who finished runner up in the spelling bee. Or a Common Grounds Fair enthusiast demanding to know where I get off making fun of falafels, Shiitake and hemp shirts.

Occasionally, messages left on my phone carry promises of violence. Now and then, its a threat of lawsuit. A good 25 percent of messages are outright lunacy that can’t be deciphered without a shot of Thorazine. The few that remain are nice calls, with flattery and helpful tips and I always return those ones first.

Here is a message from kindly woman with some helpful information about the lives of old people and how it can best be enjoyed. I silenced the portion where she leaves her phone numbers so you people won’t go calling her for dates and such.

I know how you are.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 25th, 2008 at 2:25 pm and is filed under Etc.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.