Well speak then. If you’ve rang me you should have the courtesy to talk.
To me it’s analogous to someone calling out my name, or tapping my shoulder, me turning round and saying “Hum?” and the other person then ignoring me and carrying on a different conversation or task.
It. Is. Irritating.
[too late for ]edit: Sorry TroubleAgain I think I misunderstood you. I think you mean YOU will say one or two hellos. At first I thought you were saying you don’t tolerate other peopel who do it.
That would warrant a click and dial-tone from me, but I’m getting impatient in my (21 years) old age.
What terrible phone manners. I’d hang up after two hellos, and then, if I had caller ID, I wouldn’t answer calls from that number again. You call someone, you better be ready to talk to them when they answer.
Not an option if it’s your kids, but jeez, they should have more respect for their parents than that. Hell, they should have more respect for anyone than that.
I have, very occasionally, been the one to call someone and then go, “ohmigosh, the baby just grabbed the toothpaste/threw my keys in the toilet/ate the cat’s tail gottagocallyourightbackbye!”
So far, my friends have been reasonable enough to accept that this is more or less out of my control and comes with the territory of caring for children young enough that their main hobbies are trying to commit suicide in creative ways. And I do call back as soon as practical, and I apologize profusely for the inconvenience when it happens.
My approach with the telemarketer crowd might work well for this situation.
Wait until the calling party finally gets around to saying hello, then don’t say anything. It’s kind of a feel thing, but wait until they are about to hang up and then say hello.
Usually they will start in on some spiel or ask how you are or, in your case, ask if they can go to a friend’s house or whatever. Then you wait again without saying anything. Then say hello again.
If you have any acting ability, you should try to make it sound like you picked up the phone and got a dead line. “Hello…?”
With telemarketers I can go on like that for several minutes, knowing that someone is losing money and hopefully getting irritated. With the kids, I might just hang up eventually.
You were right the second time. 
Well, sure, those are unforeseen not-quite-emergencies that I’m sure had you been aware of pre-dialing, you would not have completed your dialing. But if you dial someone knowing that you won’t be able to give the dialee your full attention, you’re a weenie. Doubly so if you are able but unwilling to give them your full attention.
Here’s a thing no-one has mentioned yet.
My husband carries his cell phone in his pocket all the time, and sometimes, the pant’s fabric or his leg or the counter he presses up against will make the phone call me, as I’m first in the phone’s memory.
Then all I will hear is a swishing sound and some muted talking. In such cases, I keep calling “Hello !!” loudly so he’ll know his phone is ringing somebody and costing him money.
Tell him to turn the damn key lock on, or get a flip-style phone so it can’t happen.
My (ex) husband does this. I simply hang up. He just calls back, apologizes and says what he now has “time” to say.
One would think after doing this several times he would learn to be prepared but he is easily distracted.
There are situations that need attention that you can’t see coming, though. My brother often has to stop arguing or attend to a child who’s slammed her fingers while he’s talking to me. With three kids aged 5 and under, I think that’s to be expected.
Well, I don’t answer the phone at all if I don’t know who it is. So, if I get as far as the first hello, I already know that I at least tolerate this person, if not like them. For my friends, I would generally start yelling, “There’s no one here! We’re all somewhere else!” or something, until they spoke up.
Oddly enough, I don’t get all that many phone calls.
Tris
Yes, but when it happens several times during pretty much every phone call (initiated by the other person), that gets old real fast. Especially when the children in question are old enough to know better, and the parent is known to have trouble setting boundaries.