That's my ringtone story and I'm sticking to it

I never use the electronic beeps that are programmed into the cellphone for you to select as your ringtone. I can never tell which is mine, and I need to use a melody ringtone that I can recognise if I ever hope to answer my phone.

Once, when a new cellphone was still set in the programmed beep that it came with, I ignored it as it rang and a friend who was with me asked me why wasn't I answering my phone. I didn't even recognise that my phone was ringing, I thought it the electronic squiggly noise was his phone going off and was wondering why wasn't he answering his phone!

So for the longest time, my cellphone played the theme from Star Wars when it rang.

Then L got a cellphone that could do sound recordings. I know that most cellphones do that now, along with the ability to carry out DNA testing and various other wonders that come with all the bells and whistles that come with a cellphone, but I like my phone to just let me make and answer calls -- if that's not too much to ask of a phone. So I used his phone to record Queeni barking (easily achieved by getting him to ring the door bell), and then sent it to my phone and Queeni barking became my ringtone.

It stayed that way until one day, I came back to my desk at work and very strange looks from my colleagues. I had left the cellphone on the desk when I wasn't there, and they were wondering why an empty desk was barking.

Time to change the ringtone. So I set the phone to another melody -- Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries.. Then I realised one thing -- sometimes when I was home watching TV, I'd hear the ringtone and then go off to pick up the phone, only to find that there was no call. There wasn't even a missed call, so it was not like I didn't pick it up in time before the caller rang off. But I swore I heard the Ride of the Valkyries go off. Most peculiar.

It wasn't until last week that I realised that Tina Fey's ringtone in 30 Rock was the same tinny Ride of the Valkyries..

Laugh all you want. But when you're prising yourself away from the sofa to answer a phone, you're not paying attention to what's going on on the TV, and you miss the fact that Tina Fey is also answering the phone and that Ride of the Valkyries stopped as soon as she did so.

It's time to change my ringtone again. Now, it plays Guns 'n' Roses' Sweet Child Of Mine for calls from home and Bon Jovi's Livin' On a Prayer for calls from other numbers.

I am unapologetic for my taste in 80s rock.