[Note: Today is the last day to enter subtitle ideas for my book. Click here to submit one.]

Today I present to you seven suggestions for how we should all handle dropped calls. Following this advice will make the world a better place.

1. For the sake of those around you, keep the “Hello? Can you hear me? I can hear you…can you he– I can– You still there?” count to a maximum of four. And while we’re at it, keep your voice’s volume knob at “normal” instead of shouting to the other person as though she is Baby Jessica trapped in the bottom of a well. Too soon?

2. When you’re in the middle of an extremely long rant about your last visit to the doctor and you don’t hear any affirmation sounds coming from the other person, either your story is terrible and he’s playing Words with Friends, or the call was dropped 12 minutes ago when you were detailing your urinary tract infection.

3. When you do get reconnected, make sure to spend the first two minutes of the resumed conversation justifying why it couldn’t have been you who dropped the call. Back up this claim by stating your location and how many bars you have. If he strikes back with the classic “Yeah, well I have Verizon” retort, he’s probably right about it being your fault. Not to worry, though. You’re the one with the iPhone.

4. One of the most difficult decisions to make is whether or not to call back if it was dropped during the conversation wrap-up. Bryan Allain has proposed coming up with a special code phrase that signifies “Our essential business is done, so if we get cut off after this, there’s no need for a call back”. I support this idea, and propose that the code phrase be “Snowplow Huckabee”.

5. If you were on the receiving end of the lame story (mentioned above) and you get reconnected, he will inevitably ask where he was in his story. You, of course, weren’t listening, so the only safe response here is “towards the end”. I used to go with “the first part”, but that resulted in me having to listen to the story all over again.

6. Let’s limit the number of re-connecting attempts to three. If you still can’t make it work after three, it’s obvious that the conversation wasn’t meant to happen. Send a quick text or email later if it was really important, but at this point we’ve maxed out our phone energy.

7. And lastly, amidst all of the AT&T/Verizon ad campaigns bashing one another about dropped calls, let’s keep a little perspective. As the comedian/philosopher Louis CK points out about a cell phone call, “Give it a second! It’s going to space“. Believe it or not, there will be a few drops every now and then. Let’s learn how to cope.

Anything I’m leaving out?
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