Double Take

"To Review, Press 1; To Send, Press 2; To Stalk, Press 3"

Ahhh . . . the broken dial tone. It offers more pleasure than using up the late meal fund on soggy gummy worms. It offers more listening excitement than the Spice Girls and fifty drunk people screaming the story from A to Z. It offers more sweet anticipation than being next in line for the sweat-soaked Stairmaster adjacent to the broken fan at the Dillon "Sauna" Gym.

Receiving a voice message is a sense of security in this dark and stormy Gothic land. It is knowing that someone has heard the personal greeting you rerecorded twelve times in order to capture the sexy, witty or "real" you. Or maybe someone more adept with voicemail, but a little deficient in the human interaction department, (quel surpris! being at Princeton and all) decided to send you a message.

In layman's terms this means to record, listen, erase and rerecord for twenty minutes before taking the great risk of pressing the pound key. Welcome to the most popular activity on campus: playing with voicemail.

Let's break the "voicemail flow chart" into three simple sections.

Crappy Correspondence with Voice deals with voicemail buzz kills due to her annoying, questioning and occasionally rude remarks. Like when you go out on a limb and press eight twice to "connect" to message bearer, and she cries "Transferring" as if possessed by demons of the night. Or when you accidentally press one while in your empty mailbox.Voice harshly admonishes, "You have NO new messages."

If you need to spell someone's name but forget to press pound, you reach hell – the land of perpetual questions. "Seven?-Seven?-Six?-Four?-Seven?-Eight?-Seven?-Four? is NOT a recognized mailbox." Thank you, Voice, for stating the obvious because clearly letters are as good as numbers.

Leaving Yourself an Out can help to restore the excitement destroyed by crappy correspondence. This is a favorite for Princeton students because the desire for perfection can be achieved in even this minimal aspect of life. Various pound-star-one combinations can be finagled so that dealing with voicemail is as exhilarating as bringing a paper to the Writing Center. With enough work, your communication problems can be added to the list of weaknesses kept out of the public eye. Who could ask for anything more?

For Stalkers Only is certainly a favorite of mine. I have spent many a night interrupting movies, homework and deep conversations to press three and "locate messages." How interesting can Dawson's Creek be in comparison to figuring out exactly when your message was received and how many minutes the reply took and the ratio of response rate to – well, enough about me.

Can you really say that you've never U-Called someone just to hear their voice? Also included in this category is the "tamper and erase" option (code name: Nixon). Leave a message for someone without leaving yourself an out and proceed to decipher your victim's password in order to erase it just in time. Warning: Nixon is not for the amateur voice mailer.

The voicemail game offers three advantages of utmost importance to a Princeton scholar. Assured friendship (hey, at least Voice needs you), the chance for zero mistakes and a way to communicate or hear someone's voice without direct contact. It's all part of the opportunities of a well-rounded life at college. I just wish that Voice could sign my yearbook.