When the telephone rings are you excited or fearful?

Fearful, most of the time it makes me jump out of my skin. Other times I hate that irritating sound, it always seems to make me feel jumpy. On my cell phone I always try to have a soft ringtone that doesn’t make me have heart palpitations. It is so soft that I end up not hearing it at times. I am a weirdo, uh?

I almost never get phone calls at home so I don’t bother even answering it. Answering machines are a beautiful thing.

I’d have to say excited. Just remember just because it rings doesn’t mean you have to answer.

Calls at home are usually from people who want to sell me something. Calls at home are usually from people who want me to do something. The latter make me want to go home and the former make we want to go to the office.

It will be either a telemarketer, or one of my daughter’s friends. Either way, more of a groan – why do I have to get up for this?

If it’s during the day, I grumpily hope that it will be something worth the effort of stopping my activity and running all around the house to find the phone. Usually it isn’t.

Outside of working hours I get excited because it’s probably my father.

I love getting ‘phone calls. I am always the one who dashes to answer the call.
I am a ‘people person’ and love interacting with friends and family and even the occasional person trying to sell me something!!

I’m never fearful but I do sometimes get irritated ;)

Fearful. My mom is very sick right now, so I don’t know when that call could be more bad news.

Daytime calls are usually annoying; telemarketers, political campaigners, poll-takers. The ones at night are frightening for the same reason chyna gives, particularly since I’m 11 hours away from Mom.

Depends on the ring tone. If its his or my best friends I’m excited. The others usually go unanswered.

Neither. I usually wonder who it is. Once I see the caller ID, then I have a reaction. Usually it’s, “Nope, not talking to a telemarketer,” or “Oh cool, it’s so-and-so.”

@chyna – I remember that feeling. I hope your mom gets better very soon!

Both. If I am expecting a call with good news. excited. I hate bill collectors though.

I’m more often than not on the bloody toilet! Timing, absolutely typical it is.

I usually get excited and hopeful that it’s my husband calling. If it’s not him, it’s usually a family member or friend which is always nice too.

Calls at home, late at night, are usually my work needing something fixed, or someone telling me a friend or family member is dead.
The trick is to answer the phone, and be awake. I have troubles with talking on the phone while still sleeping. A couple years ago, my sister-in-law called me to say that my brother had a heart attack, and I woke up a couple minutes into the call, not remembering anything that was said. You suddenly find yourself talking on the phone, asking yourself who it is.

Lately, 70% of the phone calls we get are from charities, pollsters, political parties and the like. It is driving me crazy.

Fearful. It’s usually either spam of all the various kinds, or my mother (duh duh DUH!!!), so either way I don’t really want to answer it. Everyone else usually texts/IMs/Tweets/emails me, so I know it’s not them. Or, they IM me to let me know that they’re coming over, so there’s a 45 minute gap in which calls might be good. However, I was pleasantly surprised last weekend with a call from my sister who was down here and wanted to get together.

However, my Droid has a feature that lets you send numbers “straight to voicemail” and then the phone never rings. Then I use Google Voice to transcribe their message and view it as an email. That’s been something of a lifesaver.

I get annoyed, especially if I’m in the middle of something

Both, it’s nearly always family, and usually good news, but sometimes car trouble. My Mother-In-Law is in failing health, so it could be bad news. The phone is on the table right next to me, and nearly always says right on the screen who it is.

If it’s somebody like “unknown” I just let the answering machine take the call.

A mixture of both. Excited because our house phone hardly ever rings; then I get fearful thinking is it bad news! I know…I shouldn’t think like that:\

Neither. It’s more like “aw man, who’s (possibly) bugging me NOW again?”