Whoever thought having voice commands was a good idea does not have children

What is it about the telephone being attached to my ear that my kids think is permission to scream and yell and fight and act like I never feed them?

Whenever the phone rings my kids think this is their cue to scream as loud as they can. I think they hold regularly meetings about what they will do the next time the phone rings...

Lou "If everyone is hear I think we should discuss our tactic for the next telephone call. Any ideas? Yes, Monkey?"
Monkey "I think we should run in circles around the table 4 times, then run through the den knocking Munchie over on the way, then run through the den and the hall right past mom and almost knock her over."
Lou "That's a good one Monkey. Any other ideas?"
Wadie "I go potty. You don't eat poop."
Lou "Oh thanks, Wadie. You can go in the bathroom, scream for mom that you went poop, then put the whole roll of toilet paper in the toilet. When you are done you can get in the bath and put shampoo in yours and Munchie's hair. I like that one."
Munchie "AHHHHHHHHHH!!! Seee!!! Welcome!!! Pee pee!!! PSSSSSSSSS!!!"
Monkey "Munchie said pee pee!!! HAHAHAHA!"
Lou "Ok, so are we sure that's what we will do next time. You know it has to be better than last time when we had the scooter race through the living room. Or the time before that when we through all the papers on the floor so when Mom was walking through the house while on the phone she would slip and almost fall. That was funny though."
Mom "You better be cleaning that den, I'm coming to check."
Lou "Meeting adjourned. Remember your part. Quick, act normal!"
All the kids "WAHHH WAHHH But it will take too long! I don't want to clean! I'm thirsty!"

In all seriousness though, it seems whenever I'm on the phone they are worse than usual. Just today I was on the phone with my mother in law. I can't exactly yell something like "GO TO BED YOU BRATS!!! I AM TRYING TO TALK TO GRANDMA!! IF YOU DONT GO TO BED IM BEATING YOUR LITTLE BUTT INTO NEXT WEEK!!!" Well I could but I try to act like I know how to handle my kids. So I just calming tell them 55 times they need to get in bed and no they will not get a snack because they were fighting but yah you can have a snack if it will get you off my back but no if you arent going to eat what I gave you then you arent getting anything, but anyways what was I saying, NO go to bed, Im not telling you again. Ok I think they are going... you should have eaten your dinner then. Im sorry its time for bed, when Im done on the phone Ill come read you a story."

One would hope this was the end of it but this is just the beginning. Then ensues the screaming from across the house that the mother in law can hear in the phone. You wish she would laugh but instead you know she is thinking "Kid's these days! Having kids while they are still kids themselves and not knowing how to raise them right. If I was taking care of them they would listen." as she just sits their listening to the chaos unfold.

Tattle taling soon follows... "He hit me" and "She won't leave me alone" It is really hard to understand how they can do these things when they sleep in seperate rooms. Do they have super stretchy arms like the mom in The Incredibles? Do they make fun of each other for having to go to bed? They are constantly at each other's throats... you would think they would stay away from each other. But NO! You got one of them in the other's room just being themselves. They dont have to be touching the other one, they dont have to be talking, they just have to be breathing and someone is screaming.

They also destroy the house in the blink of an eye anytime I am on the phone. It could be clean but the moment the phone rings it looks like tornado alley. Why is that? It's like Pavlov's dog. Who the heck trained my kids to make a mess when they hear Ashley Tisdale singing Fabulous???

All of this phone drama leads me to my real pet peeve. Those damn automated, voice command systems that so many places use now. I call the bank and they ask for me to 'say' my account number. I start to rattle off the numbers when the baby decides its time to practice saying "mama." I then hear, "I'm sorry but I did not understand. What is your account number?" So I say it again. This time a child being chased by older, bigger child runs by causing the system to once again say, "I'm sorry. Was that 112669?" Very agitated I say "NO" to which robot lady says, "I'm sorry, I did not understand, please hold while I transfer your call." UGH, I did not want to be transferred. I wanted to check my statement. Or in today's case I wanted to check the status of a shipment. Everytime I tried to answer the dumb guestion about taking a survey the baby would grunt as if she were trying to take a poop. The automated system could not translate her grunts and disconnected me.

So I leave you with this challenge... find me the moron that invented these kinds of systems. I would like to give him a piece of my mind. There is no way on earth a mother invented this system, and if it was a mother... let me give her the mother of the year award because she must be the "perfect" parent. As for me, I am not and the automated system is one more stressor in my imperfect life.