The shoot-the-messenger frenzy that has greeted Sunday's New York Times op-ed by Ronald Reagan's former budget director leaves one searching for the message that has so unhinged his critics.
Yet he could not resist leaving one last message.
Before saying "Goodnight Irene," I left one more message, with these words of wisdom from Paul Simon: "A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest".
Instead of sending messages that could be intercepted, they left one another messages saved in the draft folders of e-mail accounts for which multiple members had passwords.
Mainly, we sat at our desks and wrote wishy-washy poems on keyboards manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation, left one another sly messages on pink While You Were Out sticky notes, swapped paperback novels Kurt Vonnegut, Margaret Atwood, Gabriel García Márquez, that kind of thing and, during lunch hour, had assignations in empty, unlocked offices.
"We're the largest group still up, how many hours do we have left?" asked one message on the page.
Leave him ONE message, not 100!
And if you forget to leave one of the voice messages, you can manage your account from the computer as you would with a traditional system.
The bills have all been left by customers, with personalised messages, so I left one from the Guardian, stapled into the ceiling with a staple gun provided by a woman at the bar.
I left messages but didn't hear back, so I left one more, reminding him of my previous calls.
