Ever Want to Just Leave A Message?

Communication response times have come far from the days of smoke signals. We can send and receive messages in the blink of an eye via text, phone, e-mail, Facebook, MySpace, instant message, the list goes on. This is a good thing. Except when it's not.

For example, on the occasions when you really need to return a bad blind date's or your mother-in-law's phone call. It would be rude not to, but it's late, your throat is bone dry from talking all day and there's a Scrubs rerun on TV. A text might come off as too curt, an e-mail as inviting of further dialogue. Wouldn't it be nice to just leave a voicemail, thereby putting the ball back into your recipient's court?

This is the idea behind Slydial, a new venture that allows you to skip straight to the voicemail of the person you're calling. The best part is that Slydial is free, can be used when calling any mobile phone and will usually register a missed call, depending on the service provider. Simply dial 267-SLYDIAL and follow the instructions.

As one user reported on the website of the sneaky service, he used Slydial to leave a groveling apology on his girlfriend's voicemail to avoid having to rehash the apology-requiring tiff before reaching the "I'm sorry" part of the conversation. She returned his call minutes later, apologized for overreacting and they went on their merry way.

Now, I'm not advocating chronic games of phone tag or call avoidance, but with all the immediate messaging at our fingertips, sometimes it's nice to have a period to cool down, collect or finish an episode without having to keep a fire stoked and a copy of Smoke Signals For Dummies handy.