Tonight I came home to find two phone messages waiting for me.First message. Static. Sounds like a bad connection, the likes of which no one has heard since the days before 900 MHz cordless phones. At the very end, the static lifts just enough to reveal some kind of music. Then a click. End message. Listen again. Delete.Second message. Less static, but obviously the same music. It’s not background noise intruding into someone’s attempt at conversation; someone’s holding the phone up to a radio or a television. Maybe they want me to hear the lyrics, but music over a telephone never works well. All that is discernable is a loud and blotted out voice. There’s part of a chorus, and then the music begins to repeat a little before the phone appears to pull away. Click. End message. Listen again. Listen a third time. Delete.I don’t get timestamps with my message service, and we don’t have call waiting. I suppose the calls could have been for my housemate, but she’s in Toronto at the film fest, and probably everyone who knows her well enough to do something like this would know that. Maybe it’s just a mistake—two days ago I got a message from an old lady that went something like this:“-oh, it says she’s not in. I’ve never heard that message before. (pause) I’ve never heard that before.” Background conversation, then: “You have to leave a message.” Then the caller: “She’s not in.” Background noise, then the sound of the receiver dropping into the cradle.

If you had any hope for today’s youth, this Gothamist comment thread should pretty much destroy it.