"You have the right to leave a message..."

Why does it take so long to leave a message for someone? In the course of a typical day I call a lot of people, almost invariably on their cell phones. It seems like it wasn't all that long ago when a trip to voice mail meant listening to several seconds of the person's message followed by a simple beep. It was a short and effective process that got the job of leaving a message over with in short order.

Not so anymore, now our Miranda Rights have to be read to us before we can leave a message. A page and a half of instructions are rattled off by some scripted, young female voice as you sit drumming your fingers, anticipating your cue to start talking, get your point across and wish the recipient a good day. And the greeting is delivered by a generic voice that's also used for every single one of that carrier's customers who didn't create their own greeting.

Worse still than those who don't personalize their voice mail are those who want to be DJ's with it. The words, "Please enjoy the music while your party is reached,"pretty much guarantee that I won't. If the variety of rap, hip hop, country, pop and other genres popular these days is represented by a large, random sampling of people's ring tones then my suspicions that commercial music died a few years ago are well founded. I'm glad I don't own a radio.