phones

I do not have a cell phone. I have never had a cell phone. I hope I never have a cell phone. I don't like cell phones.

But, if I had to commute to a job or traveled a lot or wandered around town in the middle of the night, a cell phone would be handy in case of an emergency. An emergency only. Not because you need to tell your best friend that you are on your way to the doctors because you are having a weird discharge 'down there'. True story, Keith had to listen to a cell phone conversation about just that while waiting in line at the bank. A loud cell phone conversation because for some reason people think they have an invisible phone booth around them when they are talking on their cell phones.

When I was growing up, cell phones were something that hadn't been imagined yet, the closest thing was a walkie talkie. Our phones were big and heavy and had this weird dial thing on it with letters and numbers, and to call anyone you had to stick your fingers in the holes that corresponded to the number you wanted to dial and manually turn the whole thing for each number. Dialing a number could take a minute or two, and then you had to wait a little while to get connected and listen to the phone ring and hope that whoever you were trying to call was actually at home to answer the phone. Or you would get a busy tone that meant that the party in question was talking to someone else on the phone. And then you would have to just try again later, again hoping that they would still be home to answer the phone. There were no such things as answering machines or call waiting or call forwarding or three way calling or all that stuff. Although some houses still had party lines where you could pick up the phone and if the line was already being used you could listen in on the latest gossip around town. That was always fun until the people on the line could hear you breathing and tell you to get off the line.

There were no such thing as portable phones where you could wander around the house or go to the bathroom while talking on the phone. You were connected by that twirly phone cord that would only stretch a few feet unless you got the super long twirly cord that always tangled up and the only way to untangle it was to let the phone dangle at the end of the cord and twirl around untangling itself. If you wanted a private conversation, you had to go into the hall closet and shut the door with the phone cord under the door.

No, nowadays you can talk on the phone whenever and wherever you want and you are always available and always have that cell phone with you just in case someone is trying to reach you. You can talk while eating in a restaurant, while checking out at the grocery store, while waiting in line for a movie, while in the movie, while at the doctor's office, while giving birth, while going poop, you can talk anywhere! And they have those bluetooth things so you don't even have to hold a phone up to your ear, you can just yack away looking like a total idiot because those of us that can't see your bluetooth think you are talking to yourself and have some severe mental issues since you have that glazed look in your eyes, and never mind that you are dressed in a business suit and are oh so incredibly important that your phone conversation must be conducted in public, you still look like you are mentally deranged and are hearing those voices in your head again.