Sheffield Phone Ettiquette

You know how some families have a funny way of answering the phone…or they have polite phone etiquette. Not in the Sheffield household. Nope, if you call our house, you’ll be lucky if my dad doesn’t pick the phone up and say “What do you want?” No greeting, nothing…just that.
Here are some of my dad’s great greetings…

“Hey, you big dummy…”
“Don’t you ever call my house and wake me up on a Saturday morning again!”
“Hell no, we’re not interested.”
“Are you some kind of telemarketer??... We don’t want any!” (I would just like to add here, that there is NO use in actually asking a telemarketer if they are a telemarketer. Also, do y’all notice that it is odd that “John Smith” sounds like he should have been named “Cho Jung” or “Achmed Abdul?” I’m not being racial by any means, but don’t give me that bit about John Smith…I’m not buying it.)

Last week, (I wrote about the incident in my last blog), my dad talked the Pizza Hut people when they called wondering if the delivery boy had made it to our house. Here is the gist of what we heard on our end.

“Hell no, he hasn’t shown up. I’ve got two p.o.ed girls over here that have been waiting for two and a half hours for their pizza….Yes, they’re hungry… and they are p.o.ed. Thank God, this boy wasn’t driving an ambulance….”

--Side note—we were about to pee all over ourselves listening to him rant. I did feel a little sorry for the Pizza Hut people, though.

Last night, though, was the topper. Dad was “sharing information” on the phone (wonder where I get it from??). This is what we heard…

“No, I’m not gonna talk about her. She’s good people. I wouldn’t do that to her.”

Two minutes later…

“She’s just weird. Just weird. Her brain is fried.”

A minute later…

“Yeah, she is just a burnt-out dope head.”

Nice, dad. Nice.

At the end of making fun of my dad for a bit, I will say that I’m not the best at phone etiquette either. I once answered the phone at the Journal “Gilchrist County School Board, how can I help you?” I still am not sure where I got that one…seeing as how I’ve never worked at the School Board office. Also, two weeks ago, I made one of those “Televoice people” cuss (Can’t actually think of what they’re called…they are operators that call for deaf/mute people that type messages to them).

This doesn’t have anything to do with phone etiquette, but I would like to expose some of the craziness that is my family. My friend Steph was going to go with me to Carrabelle next weekend, but now has found out that she can’t. Considering I booked the room a few weeks ago, and had planned to have two queen beds, I had to call and change the room to one king bed, yesterday. In explaining to my dad about the circumstances…here’s what he said (once again, his logic astounds me).

Dad: “Why are you changing it to one bed?”
Me: “Steph couldn’t come, dad.”
Dad: “Yeah, but you might have someone else that could go…what about that Kimberly girl.” (I swear, Dad never gets KW’s name right).
Me: “Dad, it’s Krystle…not Kimberly, and not Rosie. Krystle…and she just had surgery, so she can’t. And I don’t think that I can find anyone that can go…it’s next weekend.”
Dad: “How much are you paying for the room now? It’s cheaper now that you’re down to one bed right?”
Me: “No, dad. It’s the same price.”
Dad: “Then, why didn’t you just keep the other bed?”
Me: “I don’t need it. It’ll just be me going. Why would I need two beds?”
Dad: “Well, I’d have gotten my money’s worth.”

OMG. This is just about how every conversation goes at my house. Do you see why I’m crazy??