In Case Of Emergency... Break The Rules

My freshman year in college, I saved the following as my voicemail:

"Hey, this is Taylor. Leave a message and I'll call you back. If this is an emergency and you need me immediately, call three times in a row and I'll do whatever I can to call you back."

I thought it was brilliant. That way, no matter what the circumstance, I could be available at any given time as long as I heard the phone ring (or feel it buzz). So if you needed something badly, you could call three times and I'd walk out of a meeting, or walk out of class, or interrupt a regularly-scheduled broadcast to help you out. But here's some advice. Never give your brother specific instructions on how to get you to drop whatever you're doing to talk to him. He'll probably do what my older brother did and take full advantage of it.

The main problem was that no one ever had a real emergency. So every time I got called three times in a row, it was a false alarm. And it was mostly my older brother. Which is why I had to change my voicemail and abort the idea altogether.

The first time it happened, though, I kinda freaked out. I was in the middle of a Political Science class, and my phone started buzzing. I saw it was my older brother, so I declined it. Then he called again, so I declined again. Then he called again. And I went into emergency mode. I threw my books into my backpack, stuffed my pen in my pocket and bolted out the door. Then I frantically called him back. Here's how that conversation went:

Me: "Is everything okay?! What's going on?!"
Him: "Nothing much. What're you up to?"
Me: "What am I up to? Is there an emergency?"
Him: "Oh... uh... no."
Me: "Then why did you call three times in a row?"
Him: "Well, I knew you were in class and we were gonna go get some pizza for lunch. And I knew that was the only way I could get you to leave your class and come with us."
Me: "Are you serious?! I just rushed out my class like a madman and you... wait, pizza from where?"

So that was the beginning of the end for my brilliant voicemail plan. Now I just stick to the basic stuff. I might even revert back to the robotic lady voice that just gives your number and says you're not available. It makes me feel like I have a robot secretary.