Friday

5:15 p.m. “Hey, I don’t know if you’re screening your calls or what, but give me a call when you get this message. We should go out tonight.”

5:33 p.m. “I don’t think my phone was turned off, but I never heard it ring. Anyhow, sorry I missed you. Call me back and we’ll make plans.”

8:30 p.m. “Hey, just got your message. Actually, I got it about 30 minutes ago, but it took me 15 minutes to check my voice mail, and another 15 minutes to make this call …”

11:43 p.m. “What the hell? Not only did my phone not ring, but my voicemail didn’t go off until just now. Anyway, we’re having fun — you should be here.”

Saturday

12:02 p.m. “This is absolutely ridiculous! I was just woken up by my voice mail going off … 11 HOURS AFTER YOU LEFT A MESSAGE! I swear, this is the most expensive pager I’ve ever owned.”

2:35 p.m. “Hey, I’m at the game right now. Oh! Did you see the Sprint rep’s letter to the editor in yesterday’s paper? I tried calling the number in the letter, but my phone wouldn’t work …”

4:19 p.m. “I finally got through to customer service — using a land line — and they had the gall to tell me there wasn’t a service problem in Madison. I told them that not only was my phone a mere pager, it was a horribly ineffective one. I demanded a free month’s service, to little avail.”

4:45 p.m. “I just found three lost voice mails on my phone, including yours. Anyways, I forget why I was calling. Guess I was just excited that my phone work —”

5:50 p.m. “Sprint sucks.”

Sunday

Noon. “Wow, I can’t believe I finally got through to you. How was your weekend?”

“Good. Would have been nice to meet up with you, though.”

“Yeah, but I can use the money I saved to pay for my very expensive phone.”

“Sprint says they’re going to build another tower on campus …”

“Not for another month, though. Can you believe we’re paying —”

3:30 p.m. “Hey, sorry about earlier, my phone cut out and now I’m just getting your voice mail. We should write an editorial. …”