I should have hung up just then — I knew it was wrong — but something made me continue listening

Until recently, our millennial way of life served us well in the phone department. Both my husband and I have our own cell phones, and we never found the need for a landline. We’d direct all calls to one of our two numbers, and if the kids needed to make a phone call, we’d happily hand over one of the phones.

Happily, that is, until our 11-year-old daughter’s phone calls became the main source of phone usage in our home, and her studying or schmoozing or coordinating began to require more time than her mother’s cell phone would allow. Recognizing that we’d officially come face-to-face with a Preteen, we decided it was time for a landline.

She was satisfied, and quickly shared the new phone number with one or two of her friends. It felt almost nostalgic having a landline in our house, and I appreciated being able to leave the house with my phone and still being able to reach the kids. The kids also enjoyed the blinking light that notified us of an exciting, albeit unimportant and preteen-esque, voice mail.

So it was with little interest that I pressed the flashing voice mail button one evening. The house was finally quiet after a long and seemingly endless bedtime. The kitchen waiting to be cleaned and a very wet and very old load of laundry was demanding to be switched to the dryer. I knew the voice mail could only be from one of my daughter’s friends who knew our new number, but as I held the phone to my ear, I quickly realized it was an unintentional voice mail and that whoever had left it was unaware of having done so.

I should have hung up just then — I knew it was wrong — but something made me continue listening.