lesson 1: pick up the phone

So yeah, I have this new phone thing. I've become more or less adept at text messages, which I really like. They save me, often, from having to speak on the phone.

For some time, until indeed Sunday before last when I had this comedy of a friend calling me and me not noticing she was calling because I have somehow turned it to 'discreet' mode and do not know how to turn it back, so I would call her back but she was still on the phone leaving me a message I hadn't gotten yet & etc & etc. Then she called again while I was taking a break from figuring out the phone, and I saw the little green handset icon, and I kept pressing it !yes! I want to answer the phone! and nothing kept happening.
I can return a call I receive, that's ok.
But then somebody else happened by, in person thank goodness. So I swallowed all my foolish pride about being an educated person, living in the 21st century and not even the first decade of it, and all, and asked him how to answer the phone.
Ah! you don't just press the green handset thingy, you have to slide it over to the right!
Who'd'a thunk it?
I mean, over to the right of the green handset that's just glowing and throbbing for you to pick up, is an evil red handset with a line through it that I just assumed meant hang up, and I figured that sending the green handset over to the red one meant sending my caller direct to voicemail. So I had avoided all experimentation with that.
But apparently that's how you do it.
.