Here's My Number ...
I am not one of those people with a fancy, "smart" phone.
In fact, my phone seems pretty dull at the best of times. I'm not sure it got past fourth grade.
It manages to call out once in a while, even though it sometimes confuses the Pizza Nova for The Yellow Dragon Chinese Restaurant and Take-out. The poor elderly once-upon-a-time-Geisha on the other end of the line hasn't even the remotest idea what a double-cheese Hawaiian is, but is quick to offer Chicken Balls. Huh? As if chickens had balls, right?
It'll call 9-1-1 lickety-split, but only when I'm drifting around in the blue stationwagon and I need someone to talk to. That may happen more than it should, I guess. Lately, the 9-1-1 operators are so used to my bothering them that they put me on HOLD ... I can't imagine what they think a real emergency is, but I guess if some racially-profiled guy breaks into my apartment and shoots me in the leg, I'll bleed to death before I get the whole Emergency Task Force to fire up their sirens and come to help.
It rings sometimes, even has about six different ringtones. I'm never sure what ringtone belongs to which caller, so for the most part I treat them all with equal disdain. I simply never answer my phone. I figure that people are calling to do one of two things. Either they want to sell me something, or they want to complain about the comings and goings of their lives.
I never buy anything over the phone, and I don't need my ducts cleaned or my carpets shampooed. So after about a hundred thousand of those calls, well, you give up answering. Simple.
As for the people who call to share their misery, good grief, they're even worse that the most broken-English telemarketer. I know we live in a sometimes grief-stricken world, but hey, there's no need to spread it around like Cheez Whiz on a stale piece of bread. I guess some folks like those kinds of telephone conversations and maybe even get some kind of emotional orgasm from the drama, but not me. Misery is contagious. I don't ask people with the latest flu-bug to sneeze in my face, I don't have a yen to step from the curb when the bus comes by, so the same is true about answering the po-me line. I simply let it ring.
Of course, there's this silly voice-mail option on my phone, and some callers feel it necessary to leave me a message. Some people leave messages that rival The Bible in length. On and on they drone about the silliest things. What's really silly is that they think I'm going to play back and listen to their messages. Uh-uh ... I never listen to my messages. In fact, I used to call myself when I was out shopping and try to fill that mailbox thing up, so that no one else could leave a message, but someone told me that I mustn't do that.
"Someone might be calling about something important," she said. "Someone might have died in the night. Wouldn't you want to know that?"
Well, if that particular someone is dead, I don't see why we all have to know immediately. After all, dead is dead. Tomorrow isn't going to change anything.
OK, I will admit that I am curious about late-night phone calls. You never know ... could be a "booty" call. To be frank, I love "booty" calls. Must be the pirate in me ...
Still, booty calls can often go awry. Once, an ex-girlfriend called around midnight and asked, "What are you doing?"
Now, I'm not as stupid as my phone, so I knew right away that she was asking more about what I might like to be doing than she was about what I was actually doing. It was a difficult moment for me, because I had just finished doing what she probably had hopes of doing. I really wasn't sure what to say, so I just blurted out, "There's already someone here, but I could put you on the waiting list, if you like ..."
That didn't get a reasonable response. Just a loud "CLICK" in my bad ear ...
What's worse is that the someone who was there stirred from her sleep and asked, "Who was that?"
The best I could think of was to say, "Some Chinese lady asking about Chicken Balls ..."
I am not one of those people with a fancy, "smart" phone.
In fact, my phone seems pretty dull at the best of times. I'm not sure it got past fourth grade.
It manages to call out once in a while, even though it sometimes confuses the Pizza Nova for The Yellow Dragon Chinese Restaurant and Take-out. The poor elderly once-upon-a-time-Geisha on the other end of the line hasn't even the remotest idea what a double-cheese Hawaiian is, but is quick to offer Chicken Balls. Huh? As if chickens had balls, right?
It'll call 9-1-1 lickety-split, but only when I'm drifting around in the blue stationwagon and I need someone to talk to. That may happen more than it should, I guess. Lately, the 9-1-1 operators are so used to my bothering them that they put me on HOLD ... I can't imagine what they think a real emergency is, but I guess if some racially-profiled guy breaks into my apartment and shoots me in the leg, I'll bleed to death before I get the whole Emergency Task Force to fire up their sirens and come to help.
It rings sometimes, even has about six different ringtones. I'm never sure what ringtone belongs to which caller, so for the most part I treat them all with equal disdain. I simply never answer my phone. I figure that people are calling to do one of two things. Either they want to sell me something, or they want to complain about the comings and goings of their lives.
I never buy anything over the phone, and I don't need my ducts cleaned or my carpets shampooed. So after about a hundred thousand of those calls, well, you give up answering. Simple.
As for the people who call to share their misery, good grief, they're even worse that the most broken-English telemarketer. I know we live in a sometimes grief-stricken world, but hey, there's no need to spread it around like Cheez Whiz on a stale piece of bread. I guess some folks like those kinds of telephone conversations and maybe even get some kind of emotional orgasm from the drama, but not me. Misery is contagious. I don't ask people with the latest flu-bug to sneeze in my face, I don't have a yen to step from the curb when the bus comes by, so the same is true about answering the po-me line. I simply let it ring.
Of course, there's this silly voice-mail option on my phone, and some callers feel it necessary to leave me a message. Some people leave messages that rival The Bible in length. On and on they drone about the silliest things. What's really silly is that they think I'm going to play back and listen to their messages. Uh-uh ... I never listen to my messages. In fact, I used to call myself when I was out shopping and try to fill that mailbox thing up, so that no one else could leave a message, but someone told me that I mustn't do that.
"Someone might be calling about something important," she said. "Someone might have died in the night. Wouldn't you want to know that?"
Well, if that particular someone is dead, I don't see why we all have to know immediately. After all, dead is dead. Tomorrow isn't going to change anything.
OK, I will admit that I am curious about late-night phone calls. You never know ... could be a "booty" call. To be frank, I love "booty" calls. Must be the pirate in me ...
Still, booty calls can often go awry. Once, an ex-girlfriend called around midnight and asked, "What are you doing?"
Now, I'm not as stupid as my phone, so I knew right away that she was asking more about what I might like to be doing than she was about what I was actually doing. It was a difficult moment for me, because I had just finished doing what she probably had hopes of doing. I really wasn't sure what to say, so I just blurted out, "There's already someone here, but I could put you on the waiting list, if you like ..."
That didn't get a reasonable response. Just a loud "CLICK" in my bad ear ...
What's worse is that the someone who was there stirred from her sleep and asked, "Who was that?"
The best I could think of was to say, "Some Chinese lady asking about Chicken Balls ..."
I've got your number, Mister, now answer your darn phone!
ReplyDeleteOkay, here's the deal ... I miss the black rotary dial telephones. That's the retro in me. The same goes for my TV ... old, square, and retro ... with a remote control, so it's not that old. I'm older than my TV and telephone, and probably a bit square.
My cell phone is a throwaway phone, and apparently the only calls I ever get are from wrong numbers ... in Spanish. I've been tempted to ask the lady at the dry cleaners to interpret the messages. She is from a Spanish speaking country. When people ask me for my cell number, I tell them I don't have one. Problem solved.
I must admit to having voice mail on my home phone. Let's face it, nothing is more annoying than to call someone and get a busy signal. My younger sister refuses to use a voice mail system, and she loves to talk for well over an hour. I think she screens her calls when the answering machine is on.
One last thing about cell phones. I don't want to watch videos and movies and read books on my cell phone. I'm not interested in scanning items at the grocery store with my cell phone. I want a small phone that fits inside the pocket of my jeans. Anything bigger and I'm not interested. Also, I don't want a phone that is smarter than a fifth grader.
Ring, ring, ring ... :)
Ask not for whom the bell tolls ... it can't be for me ... ;o}
DeleteI guess I have to lean the opposite way--I LOVE my iPhone and don't know what I'd do, without it. The best thing I like about it is that, whenever I'm away from my home Internet, I always have the phone's Internet capability to fall back on. Curiously, I seldom use it as a phone ...
ReplyDeleteI'm not quite so "connected" ... but all the younger set are like you and wouldn't be caught dead without their phones ...
Delete.... my land line is on the endangered list ... I dont even know if it actually rings ... everyone within my world seems to communicate through smart phones ... which is a little anti social as not only do they have to attend to the regular phone calls, but they have to reply to mail, text back a text and then they have to surf the net just in case they have missed a sale at Next all at the same time .... and they will still try and engage in a verbal conversation. I reckon people will eventually start arriving into this world with the phone already firmly in place ... . ~grin~ Perhaps its an age thing ... because I hear my grandmothers words echoing in mine .... ''what is this world coming to''
ReplyDeleteI do however have a mobile (cell) and a smart phone at that ... which is basically my main point of contact for family and friends and although the school has my land line number, they also seem to prefer mobile contact. It's like life has become ... instant ...
moments of instant response ...
Haha ... yes, those "smart" phones can keep you busy ... and can actually take control of your life ...
Delete" 'Someone might be calling about something important," she said. "Someone might have died in the night. Wouldn't you want to know that?' "
ReplyDeleteWhenever I answer the phone and I denote an accent, which can only originate from a back-alley boiler room next to an opium den in the Black Hole of Calcutta, I pretend I can't hear the other party and just keep repeating "Hello, hello...". I then hang up. I have yet to have one of them call back.
This also works well when you've decided that you don't want to talk to a known caller, who, experience has taught you, will bore you to death. You can interrupt the conversation at any point with a "Hello, hello..." After you hang up, they will attempt to call you back, to bore you even further with the remainder of ingredients in Aunt Myrtle's lemon meringue pie, but you already know who it is, so you don't answer. They'll think there must be something wrong with the line.
Being privacy and security conscious, I use a cheap burner (throw-away phone), so not even the NSA knows where I stashed my U.S. Apocalyptic Supply, with a 50 year shelf life. As far as a smart phones--screw 'em. There's no way I'm going to go from looking at a 50" monitor to staring at a postage stamp.
~Manfred
I'm with you, Manfred, and not interested in being tracked by the keepers of the grid ...
DeleteI ditched my landline almost ten years ago, and never regretted it. I no longer have the added expense or the harassment from telemarketers.
ReplyDeleteI pay $15/month for my landline, but if it cost any more than that, I might ditch it too ...
Delete