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Voice Mail Is For Suckers

Dude, yeah. It's me. Look, what is the deal? Where are you? You haven't responded to a single email. Everyone is worried, man. We checked your Facebook and you haven't updated your status in a week. A freaking week. You haven't even liked anything. And you like everything. Like. Like. Like. You're kind of obnoxious with the liking, dude. No offense. But nothing. Not even a single I­can­haz­cheeseburger cat. So then we check your Instagram and again, nothing. No hyper contrast photos of the home brew from last weekend, no warm fuzzy photos of the goat cheese tart you and Beth made, no moody black and whites of the graffiti under the overpass. You haven't filtered any phone pics for days.

So then we check your Twitter. Not a tweet, not a retweet, no direct messages from you and, dude, not even any mentions. What the hell, man? You can't stay relevant with a week of tweetless silence. You may as well be dead. So then we check your Tumblr. You haven't updated that either. It's been EIGHT days, dude. Time to shut it down. And your last post? What the? What is that about?

Proper punctuation and capitalized letters? Pffft. Whatever. You haven't responded to any IMs, the invites to Google Hangout, or answered your Skype. So then we check your Flickr. And your SmugMug and your Blogger and your WordPress and your FourSquare. You aren't checked in, you are checked out. So yesterday, I send you a text. It says it was delivered. But you didn't
text me back, man. So here we are. Reduced to this. Do you know how low this is, this moment? I'm leaving you a voicemail, dude. What is this, 2004? No, it is not. It's 2013 and this shiz is horrifying, son. Unacceptable. Do you know how many voicemails I leave in a week?

None. Zero. You want to know how many voice mails I get in a week? One. From my mom, dude. From my mom. Voice mail is for suckers, man. And moms. Look, I don't know what's going on with you, but it's scary. If we don't hear from you soon, I don't know what we'll do. We'll have to, like, come over to your house or something. Knock on your door. That's weird, man.
Weird. Just the thought of it. Face to face contact. Who does that? Don't make us do that, man. Log on. Text me. Facebook me. Just don't call my voice mail, dude. I don't check that stuff.

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Kristin Bonilla
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  • NPR's Bob Mondello and Tamara Keith read excerpts from Round 10 of our Three-Minute Fiction contest. The entries are "Voice Mail Is For Suckers" by Kristin Bonilla of Fulshear, Texas, and "Chubby Bunny" by Katie Camlin of Warrensburg, Mo.
  • This round of the short story contest for weekends on All Things Considered will be judged by author Mona Simpson. For Round 10, she wants original fiction with the "texture of voice."
  • Round 9 of weekends on All Things Considered's short story contest is coming to a close as judge Brad Meltzer is nearly ready to make a decision on the best of the best. NPR's Lynn Neary reads an excerpt from Speechless by Steve Bismarck of Medford, Ore., and NPR's Bob Mondello reads from Harding on the Boulevard du Montparnasse by Nick Kolakowski of Brooklyn, N.Y. These stories, along with other Three-Minute Fiction submissions, can be read in full at npr.org/threeminutefiction.