I've just come to the delayed realization that I have a different "voice" for different situations/people in my life.
When I answer the phone at work, my voice sounds all breathy and fake uber-solicitous, almost like a foreign phone sex operator. (Except instead of repeating slang for various parts of the human anatomy and making moaning noises, I say "ok!," "great!" and "no, thank you!" and perform my fake titter laugh (ha-ha-ha-ha-ha).
The exception to my 9am-5pm voice is when my cell phone rings during those hours and it's 1) my Aunt Melanie, looking for computer help or 2) my grandmother, calling to say hello -- either of which I'm happy to talk to at any time because my aunt has a beach house in Boca Grande and my grandmother is, well, my grandmother.
If my cell phone rings while I'm at work and it's not Mel or Gram, then inevitably it's Shell or Ry.
Shell gets the "I'matworkI'llcallyoulater" hiss, which I've gotten down to 3.2 seconds if I leave out "hello" and "goodbye" and don't let Shell get a word in edgewise.
Ry gets only slightly more time, and a "hi," though I let him do most of the talking since I'm convinced everyone at work is listening in on my conversations. (They are.) In fact, I've given him the "I don't like talking on the phone at work" speech so many times, he can probably recite it back to me, along with the names of co-workers who are in closest proximity to my desk and which one is most likely to make comments about my conversation once I'm off the phone.
After 5pm, I don't usually answer the phone unless it's my roommate (and I'm hoping she'll say, "I got a pizza" or "I'm bringing home champagne" -- even though it's usually, "what the hell is wrong with people in Boston?!"). Roommate knows I don't like talking on the phone, respects it, and keeps our conversations short. She usually gets the normal Erin voice (I can't really say the "happy" voice, because I've yet to try that one out.)
I also answer the phone in the evening if it's Ry, usually because I feel bad about being short with him on the phone earlier. Unfortunately, he doesn't usually call until around 10pm, so he gets the "I'm tired and just want to go to bed" voice. How we maintain any sort of relationship with only seeing each on the weekends and talking less than an hour on the phone during the week, I'll never understand. Thank goodness for text-messaging.
Last, but not least, my mother gets the exasperated voice. Always. But I also talk to her almost daily, so I'm pretty sure that this voice is passing for normal.
