Leave a Message at the Beep

Does anyone still do this? When you need to contact someone, what is your first, second and third methods of communication? Even though I was kind of late to the party...texting is now my favorite way to communicate. Next would probably be Facebook Messenger, followed by Snapchat and then....as a last resort, a phone call. But I really don't leave messages, unless it is a business. Even then, I usually just call back later.
So, I was caught off guard this morning when I saw my answering machine blinking 18 messages. About 12 of them are permanent....as in, I don't erase them. I have the most adorable message from a little Abram saying "Hey Madi...you left youah homewahk heeah" that I just can't erase.
It is yet another area that I qualify as a hoarder.
Anyway, back to the 6 new messages. Usually half of new messages are telemarketers or pollers asking if I am satisfied with Trump, and the other half are usually from my Dad. So I was more than a little sad to hear that I missed three kind of important messages. One of them was a family birthday party this past Friday evening, another a birthday message for Madison from Grammy and Grampy, asking her to call them back that day and the third was from Sister Ransom, wanting to know if I will be teaching seminary again next year. Thankfully that one was picked up by Danelle who already knew my plans and was able to answer in the affirmative. I am surprised that each of these three callers had not tried another means of communication. I did not get texts, emails or even calls on my cell phone from any of them.
So, now I need to decide if I should get rid of the answering machine, change the greeting to let callers know not to leave a message or just be okay missing out on possibly important communiqué. Because we ALL know that I am not going to start checking the machine more frequently.