Melanie is our host and this is today’s question:
How polite do you find it to ignore the doorbell and/or the phone? Especially if you’ve just begun to eat dinner or want to just veg out all by your lonesome? Why do we feel obligated to do either thing in the first place? One of my greatest peeves is the idea that I ought to be tied to the %$#& phone 24/7. Your honest thoughts?
It depends on the circumstances as no-one likes to be interrupted at an inopportune moment (blush).
My MIL was notorious and damn right rude as she would ignore the doorbell and the phone when she was watching TV. NOTHING was allowed to interrupt her soaps, even the reruns, and then she would moan that nobody cared and never went to see her.
For me it’s habit to answer the phone or doorbell even if we’re sitting down to eat or have company, but if we wanted to shut ourselves off from possible callers, it was simply a case of turning the phone off and taking the batteries out of the doorbell.
For years, everyone thought we were serious when we said on Christmas Eve doing the Santa Run to family that we’d go home and hang a sign on the door that said
‘We’ve wished you all a Merry Christmas now sod off!’
We never did, but then we had no need to because we hardly ever had visitors anyway.
Christmas Day was always for us, though when we got the bigger house, the In-laws and my Mum came to dinner. When my FIL died, we still had the Mums over and I can remember one year MIL making such a fuss because we wouldn’t put the telly on so that she could watch her soaps, that she demanded to go home. Hubby got her coat and took her. My Mum was surprised but content to chat over a cuppa as we always did when we had company and opened our presents. Obviously we waited for Hubby to come back (a 25 mile round trip) and then she fell asleep on the settee. She was staying over so there was no rush to take her back to my sister’s.
There have been occasions lately when I’ve forgotten to take my mobile phone when we’ve gone out. This is not deliberate, just an oversight, but the thought of being unavailable, if only for a couple of hours, is actually quite appealing.
pensitivity101 
Sometimes I do ignore the phone if we are eating… Hubby dosen’t like to answer the phone if we have guests … occasionally he’ll ask me to leave the phone if we are watching something exciting!! 💜💜
We have an ansaphone, but following getting unwelcome cold calls, when we changed supplier, we also changed phone numbers and now have a white list for the few people we have given it to. Our mobile is our main line for contact,
Yes our mobile is too 💜
Still working, so ignoring the phone is a given at times, though my boss doesn’t really care, but I think it looks wrong
‘We’ve wished you all a Merry Christmas now sod off!’ HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Our Christmases have always been good, even when I had flu and was off work for the full week. It was annoying because I couldn’t sample the duck Hubby had cooked and he and the dog had to eat it over the holidays!
They didn’t save you any???
I couldn’t keep anything down, not even water for four days, so I missed out completely. I was taken ill Christmas Eve and sent home early from work. I just made it home, it hit me so fast. It’s the one and only time I’ve had flu and I was off work until after New Year.
We turn off the sound on the phones when we are at church or out to dinner. If someone calls they can leave a message and we’ll get back to them… The vacation was really nice because we couldn’t get calls or make them either!
Even better!!