A Podcast In My Voicemail
I was listening to Natalie Sue’s new book, You’ll Love It Here, today, and the main character said that her mom left her a podcast in her voicemail. I knew exactly what she was talking about. Because I never answer my phone, everything is a podcast in my voicemail. And it is “in” my voicemail now, even though it used to be “on” my answering machine. Small shifts of terminology move the Earth.
I thought about coming home to hit play on my answering machine. It was such a luxury because there was no telespam to worry about. That message was from someone you wanted to hear from. It might not be the exact message you wanted, but you knew the person. We are so off the rails right now.
I know you aren’t home, but I just wanted to leave you a message. Yes! Now we all text-fight over small rifts that are incapable of nuance and wholly about nothing. We are doing Cliff’s Notes of everything in the world. Shorter, quicker, weaker, limper. Cardboard shreds on top of paper salad.
Friday nights are different at 55. The struggle bus is pulling up outside my bedroom to tell me it’s getting late, and it is getting late. I string together sentences to put me to sleep so that someone in my dreams can leave me a heartfelt message. I hope it’s my mom or my dad.
I wish my dad left me a 23-minute message once that I could replay for the rest of my life. I wish my grandmother left me a voicemail telling me just how much sugar she used to put in my hot Lipton tea. I even wish my stepmother would text me in what would have been broken Swedelish to get “baloney” sandwiches on a roll with “butr.” I wish my mom just said my name.
There was no greater power move than deleting a message before it was done. No one saw you do it, but it was basically Hercules in a vice grip holding a trophy. The old message, “I need you to call me,” is the same as someone texting us now to ask us to call them. Just tell me what you want inside the little boxes. It’s so much easier.
I used to make my mom handmade birthday and Mother’s Day cards every year. I would do weird things like draw a Minnesota North Stars’ Dino Ciccarelli jersey for her and then write, “Happy Mother’s Day.” I know. I have no idea. I hope I left her messages on her answering machine that she saved and listened to when she got really sick.
Everything is a podcast now. Joe’s aunt is a nail tech, and her son’s best friend’s sister has a grandmother in an assisted living facility with a lady whose grandson has a girlfriend who has a podcast about underwater basketweaving. End of world.
© Jonathan Greene, August 21, 2026
