No, I Do Not Want to Talk On the Phone
Hopping on a “quick call” is my Dante’s Seventh Circle of Hell.
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Watch me stifle a yawn as Jack Torrence, Michael Meyers, and Jason Voorhies wield sharp objects with the intent of filleting me. Witness me fall into a blissful slumber in the Amityville House while blood rains down the walls. I’ve no problem falling prey to a videotape that kills me once I watch it. A death by possession, bludgeoning, or a Satanic ritual performed by bored, goat-murdering teenagers in Cleveland does not concern me.
What concerns me is your request to hop on a “quick call” to catch up, circle back or touch base. Because you and I both know it’s never quick. Want to catch up? Send me an email.
And who hops? Do you hop? I would like to be privy to your hopping habits. I’ve been told they’re bunnies on TikTok that bounce.
One would think since I was born in the mid 1970s, I love the phone. I most certainly do not. I hated talking on the phone in the 80s and early 90s when that was the only decent form of communication. The phone would ring and you’d have no idea who was on the other line. It could be your best friend, your worst enemy, a crank caller drunk on Little Cesar’s pizza at a sleepover, or a concerned educator from your school. The phone was so risky I’d let it ring for a few times to see if the caller was serious. And then there was the payphone that when you were sobbing, screaming, etc., and an operator cuts in like surgery sans anesthesia, asking for that additional twenty five cents.
As if I rolled up to the diner with a quarter roll. I did. In all this folly, the calls never turned out well. There was a call where a doctor told me I didn’t have enough sodium so I started shoveling spoonfuls of salt down my throat when a friend calmly suggested, that’s not what I think they meant about getting more sodium in your diet.
With the phone, I never know what to expect. Even when it’s good news because I wonder if I’m possibly being punked. There was the famous writer who called me to congratulate me on my acceptance to Columbia’s writing program. Oh, I got into Columbia graduate school? That’s cute. Can you send me a letter in the mail? Because I’m going to need proof. And then I proceeded to spend an hour…
