We arrived home Monday afternoon after spending a wonderful weekend with our granddaughter and her parents, celebrating little Emma’s first birthday.

After walking into the house we heard the beep of our answering machine. Five messages had come in while we were away.

We started playing them back.

All five of ’em were political robo-calls, those automated messages designed to persuade you to vote for a particular candidate or political cause.

In our case, they are an instant signal to delete the message without ever listening to them.

My favorite robo-call came from Sen. John Cornyn, in which he introduced himself by saying: “Hello, Kathleen, this is John Cornyn …”

We deleted that right after hearing “Cornyn.” My wife, who never uses the name on her birth certificate, declared that Sen. Cornyn’s greeting would never get her to listen to anything he had to say over a recorded message. “He obviously doesn’t know me,” she said, laughing.

Robo-calls are intended to reach as many people as possible with the fewest man-hours spent as possible. I get why candidates use them. However, I’ve ever met anyone who’s heard a robo-call, listened to it and then decided how they were going to vote on a race based on the automated phone call they had just heard.

The robo-call season is about to end — for now — once the primary election ballots are counted. The calls will rev up again for the May 27 runoff that’s expected in several of the statewide Republican races; I’m thinking of the lieutenant governor’s contest for starters.

Be forewarned. The calls that come to our phone won’t be heeded.