Voice Mail Advantages
Dear  [Emeebee],
You might look into Ameritech Voice Mail (VM) on your home phone. It’s really convenient since it allows you to check your messages from anywhere. People can still leave you messages even when you’re on the phone or computer, without getting a busy signal. And, for those (like me) who occasionally would like to send you a VM without ringing your phone directly (say, in the middle of the night), provisions are available for that also. Finally, you can set up pager notification which would page you, when a message comes in. When I lived there, I believe I was paying $6 per month for VM, and you don’t have to worry about an answering machine that fails, or is unavailable during power outages. It’s rather convenient. I have it on all my residence phones.
Tom