This kind of stuff irritates me a little too, but I usually calm down in 5 minutes or so and always before I'd post on it. One of the reasons for this is that this kind of occurrence is ALWAYS funny when it happens to somebody else.
The guy probably had to call 20+ people and he sounds like the type who doesn't like to chat on the phone or make small talk with parents of either gender.
I'm sure his kids will give their next coach a book by Emily Post if they like him.
I learned that phrase at a very young age, when I was old enough to answer the phone and the caller was asking for my mom. It still serves its purposes.
I do try to identify myself when I call, probably to a fault, but I don't think I have any sort of bad reaction to callers not doing the same: the "who may I ask" question comes pretty automatically.
Thinking about it, I do think it's probably bad manners, but not something to get this irate about.
Seemed to me he was protesting a bit much about the infidelity aspect....
I think this is the part that has me the most confused. I mean if I was sleeping with some guy's wife I wouldn't leave a message for her with the husband.
Also, if some random woman left a weird message for me with my wife I am sure my wife would ask for an explanation -- but not in a demanding "I have a right to know what this is about" kind of way but in a "I'm just curious and it never entered my mind for a second that you wouldn't fill me in on the details when I passed along the message" kind of way.
Moral to story: don't blog about everything that happens to you as it happens. This is "living out loud" to a slightly lesser degree than the guy conducting a cell-phone argument with his wife from the men's room.
It's funny because something kind of similar to the rude phone call happened to me yesterday. Earlier I'd shoveled out my driveway -- we had 18 inches of snow -- then this guy showed up with an ENORMOUS snowblower and started practically taking out the kids' snow fort with the kids in it! It's like he couldn't see them. I started yelling in the house, waving my hands around wildly then I went running outside. I realized quickly that the guy was just kind of a harmless billy-bob type from down the street who was just trying to help. Coincidentally, his crappy snowblower broke down just before I reached him. I didn't say anything; I just would have appreciated it if he'd asked first. I listened to him brag about his old snow-blower which was even bigger and better and which could shoot snow 50 feet but which he "had to give to his girlfriend"... it's all very funny to me right now, but at the time, had I been blogging the live event, it would have sounded like I was having a conniption fit.
"Seemed to me he was protesting a bit much about the infidelity aspect...."
yes, and of course he's all over the Spitzer story, framing it in terms of a story about infidelity and whether it should lead to divorce.
dreher's subconscious is showing. ray dreher, the valiant crusader against "cover-ups", busily tries to paper over his own issues by writing about the same stuff in other people's lives. that way he can call attention to someone else's foibles while getting a chance to air and discuss what are clearly his own pressing issues -- a twofer in his book.
This kind of stuff irritates me a little too, but I usually calm down in 5 minutes or so and always before I'd post on it. One of the reasons for this is that this kind of occurrence is ALWAYS funny when it happens to somebody else.
ReplyDeleteIt's not the best of manners, but not quite in proportion to Dreher's freak-out over it.
ReplyDeleteSeemed to me he was protesting a bit much about the infidelity aspect....
yeah, it's pretty bad manners.
ReplyDeleteThe guy probably had to call 20+ people and he sounds like the type who doesn't like to chat on the phone or make small talk with parents of either gender.
I'm sure his kids will give their next coach a book by Emily Post if they like him.
That's a full blown conniption fit.
ReplyDelete"Who, may I ask, is calling?"
I learned that phrase at a very young age, when I was old enough to answer the phone and the caller was asking for my mom. It still serves its purposes.
I do try to identify myself when I call, probably to a fault, but I don't think I have any sort of bad reaction to callers not doing the same: the "who may I ask" question comes pretty automatically.
Thinking about it, I do think it's probably bad manners, but not something to get this irate about.
No wonder he didn't last in New York.
ReplyDeleteI think he just wanted to an excuse to type "Ass" as its own paragraph.
ReplyDeleteSeemed to me he was protesting a bit much about the infidelity aspect....
ReplyDeleteI think this is the part that has me the most confused. I mean if I was sleeping with some guy's wife I wouldn't leave a message for her with the husband.
Also, if some random woman left a weird message for me with my wife I am sure my wife would ask for an explanation -- but not in a demanding "I have a right to know what this is about" kind of way but in a "I'm just curious and it never entered my mind for a second that you wouldn't fill me in on the details when I passed along the message" kind of way.
Moral to story: don't blog about everything that happens to you as it happens. This is "living out loud" to a slightly lesser degree than the guy conducting a cell-phone argument with his wife from the men's room.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny because something kind of similar to the rude phone call happened to me yesterday. Earlier I'd shoveled out my driveway -- we had 18 inches of snow -- then this guy showed up with an ENORMOUS snowblower and started practically taking out the kids' snow fort with the kids in it! It's like he couldn't see them. I started yelling in the house, waving my hands around wildly then I went running outside. I realized quickly that the guy was just kind of a harmless billy-bob type from down the street who was just trying to help. Coincidentally, his crappy snowblower broke down just before I reached him. I didn't say anything; I just would have appreciated it if he'd asked first. I listened to him brag about his old snow-blower which was even bigger and better and which could shoot snow 50 feet but which he "had to give to his girlfriend"... it's all very funny to me right now, but at the time, had I been blogging the live event, it would have sounded like I was having a conniption fit.
"Seemed to me he was protesting a bit much about the infidelity aspect...."
ReplyDeleteyes, and of course he's all over the Spitzer story, framing it in terms of a story about infidelity and whether it should lead to divorce.
dreher's subconscious is showing. ray dreher, the valiant crusader against "cover-ups", busily tries to paper over his own issues by writing about the same stuff in other people's lives. that way he can call attention to someone else's foibles while getting a chance to air and discuss what are clearly his own pressing issues -- a twofer in his book.