The child phone answering thread made me think of this. Dad wouldn't dream of taking a message for me. Mom would kinda/sorta take a message, but God Bless her, she sucked at it. In high school, she would tell me, "A boy called. Not sure if it was Gary but it sounded a lot like him." Gary was the MOST popular boy and only called me when he would be at the basketball court so I despised that Mom basically said it "could have been" Gary with almost every male phone call!

They were ok. Never wrote anything down, they would just say "So and So" called.

My mom taking a message is almost as funny as the apple pies she swears she baked but never did!!!!

Stepdad was never good, but my mas was decent.

I can't remember my mom ever hand-writing a message, she would just tell me. Unless she was pissed at me, then she'd not bother.

what was funnier than the message thing was that my dad tried to put a lock on the phone! On the old rotary phones, you could literally put a lock on to prevent dialing. This was back in the day when you had long distance and toll calls. With three teenagers, our phone bill was really high. My sister Gail learned how to pick the lock and dad flipped!

He even changed the number and did not give it to anyone including my mom cause he said he couldnt take the phone ringing anymore! When someone dialed the number, my mom asked what number they were dialing, then had to have someone call the number back to see if it was our house! seriously happened!

I never had messages to take unless the library called about something on loan. Usually it was the other way around and I took messages for them.

My Mom would take a message for me but eventually I ended up getting my own phone line with an answering machine.

For the most part. They could remember who called.

They were good about remembering names and would take the number down if necessary. By the time I was 15 I had my own phone.