SAN DIEGO, CA –– Having not heard from him in nearly two days, Alice Tomlinson called her 32-year-old son, Ryan, to check in. But when the call went to voicemail, she began spewing out literally anything and everything that popped into her head.
Despite having so much to catch up on, Alice’s voicemail clocked in at just 5 minutes and 51 seconds –– a personal record.
“I asked if he could make it to dinner on Saturday, which made me think about how my husband and I had dinner with our neighbors Tony and Patricia a few nights ago, and they cooked this incredible prime rib,” she remembers. “That made me think of an article I just read about how red meat isn’t as bad for you as everyone says, so I talked about that for a bit.
“Then I felt myself starting to ramble, so I had to quickly tell him about his father’s new P90X regimen and that I was thinking of taking a water color class."
The one blemish in Alice’s record-breaking voicemail was when she asked her son to “hold on for a sec,” even though she was in the middle of leaving a voicemail.
“In hindsight, that's the only part where I think I could've shaved off a few more seconds," she explained. "But I had to get the casserole out of the oven, so what choice did I have?"
But her unprecedented brevity came at a price. After having a moment to reflect, Alice realizes she forget a few essential points.
"If I could do it all over again, I'd remember to tell him how handsome he looked in his last Instagram post, and that his girlfriend is a very lucky girl. I hope he knows that.”