Friend wrong to insist you answer phone when at home

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Dear friends of ours and we apparently have different views about the role of answering machines. We often choose to not answer the phone if we are home doing something else or simply don’t want to answer the phone at a given moment.

This annoys the husband of this family – if he calls and we don’t pick up, he hangs up without leaving a message.

We have told him many times that if he leaves a message, we would call back, or in the event we are home, would likely pick up the phone as soon as we can get to it.

That isn’t good enough; in his view, we are required to answer the phone if we are home, as that is the practice at their house. He also complains that we never answer the phone. And then we (I) explain to him that if he just would speak – even to say – please call back – when the answering machine kicks in, we would know that they were trying to reach us and would respond promptly.

GENTLE READER: You folks are not really keeping up, are you?

It must be 10 years since Miss Manners saw the last of the Hate Answering Machine complaints. Almost immediately after that ended, she began to receive equally angry letters from those who chastised anyone who did not have an answering machine, thus forcing them to call back.

As for you, you are apparently unaware of the devices that could spare your friend from using the machine to make himself known. You could check Caller ID, if you have it, or you could have a telephone that allows you to program its ring to let you know that a particular person is calling. It is even possible to have an answering machine that announces the callers out loud by recognizing the numbers from which they dialed.

However, none of this addresses the serious underlying issue, which is that your friend expects you to live at his beck and call, as it were. Only the parents of small children have a right to ask that.