Voicefail

For the last few months, my phone has had this screen that pops up every time I make a phone call and hang up that says I need to enter a password for my voice mail. I am fairly certain I've never set up a password, and I could still access my phone, so I just kept pressing cancel.

Last night I received a text message from my mom that said "Tried to leave a message, but your voice mail box is full." I saw that she and Aaron had both tried to call me three times each, but neither had left voice mails, and I was confused.

The password screen popped up again, and instead of cancelling it and closing the screen, I decided to try and figure out what exactly was happening. I have the 3G OG, (that's be 3G original gangster) and I remember buying my phone three years ago and needing a password for my voice mail. Over the course of years of updates, I no longer needed this code to access voice mail, so I pretty much forgot about it. I thought about what I could have possibly made my password three years ago, and miraculously, the phone accepted the combination.

And 40 missed voice mails magically appeared on my phone. The newest being from 12:24 p.m. yesterday, and the oldest being a missed call on Dec. 27, 2010, from my mom.

I have not been receiving voice mails since December 27. That's four months. And somehow this did not register in my mind. In fact, because I hate talking on the phone and pretty much avoid phone conversations and messages altogether, I hadn't even thought about the fact that maaayyybeee someone—anyone—might have left me a single message since before the new year.

Aaron's apt response: "You haven't listened to a voice mail in four months and thought that was normal?" Why yes, yes I did. I mean, let's think about it: my husband is on a movie set all day, every day, and doesn't have the opportunity to pick up and call me that often. Usually he texts. So does everyone else. So I just didn't THINK that I was missing anything. Then I remembered last weekend, when my sister-in-law Shannon said she left a voice mail, but my phone received nothing. And how I thought it was strange a few weeks ago that my hair salon didn't leave me a message, as they always do, about my upcoming appointment. And how my mom told me she left a voice mail, but I had never seen it.

So the moral of the story is don't leave me a voice mail if you need something immediately. There might be a four-month hold on my response (and no, I didn't listen to any of the 40 messages. I deleted them all). Also, I believe I've met my lifetime quota of typing "voice mail."