The telephone hour

I talked with three different people this week for over forty minutes a pop, and all three expressed the same sentiment that I couldn't agree more with: 

We all HATE talking on the phone.  

I had three different conversations about how much I hate having conversations, and the weird thing is..it didn't feel weird.

It wasn't always like this.

In the 70's, the teen line was my universe.  

It was a scene out of "Telephone Hour" which is a terrible example, because "Bye Bye Birdie" came out in the 50's, the last decade where we saw telephone operators losing their minds trying to keep up with the tangle wires that needed to be plugged into a busy wall of frantic lights because Hugo and Kim got pinned, even 'though his name was Hugo.

The phone was everything, and even 'though there were no VCRS to tape a show you'd miss because of a call, you took that call. 

I shared a teen line with my brothers(it was in their room because it was in my brother Steven's name, but it had a cord that could stretch into the hallway) and it might as well have been a cell phone of today that is never out of reach. I wouldn't care how uncomfortable it was to kneel in that hallway or stretch out without unplugging, I would take the call.

I'd hear that damn thing ring from the kitchen, a floor below, and become Usain Bolt as I dashed up the stairs, desperate not to miss a call where a high school friend had to tell me about a new part she bought for her car.

And I listened!

And we mastered the long lost art of crank calls, impossible to do today because of caller ID.  (Although I answer calls with a familiar number/name almost daily, and they're ALL about solar panels and credit cards and I need to curse at someone)

We talked nonsense because we could.

We talked dirty because we could.

But wow..I despise the phone these days, as do the three friends I alluded to in the beginning of this post. 

 And they all text..I don't even TEXT!

I communicate with my BFF via emails on an average of three-four times a day,  and I'm not sure I even remember her house or cell phone numbers, which I need to remember if I don't hear from her daily or at least every other day.

Some of this can be blamed on the pandemic...one caller lives in Manhattan and not only hates the phone, but hates talking to people in general.

 I think she needs to see a theater or two reopen.

I don't understand the appeal of ZOOM calls, which seem so March 2020 to me.  If I want to talk about returning towels to Target, I'll find a website for like minded folks.

The phone brings out the Imposter Syndrome that's buried deep within all of us: we need to chat just to hear ourselves chat.  Just to believe we've connected for real.

It's all so...phone-y.

Meanwhile, after my satiric attempt to write a send-up of "Promising Young Woman" in my post yesterday(my alternate universe was not widely read--I even confused myself trying to make my point) I did promise to do something similar with Oscar winner "Nomadland" so here goes:

"Nomadland"

Scene I Act !

Setting:  A massive gathering space filled with vans and trucks,  in the southwest, set against skies of purple and yellow, of silhouette of cactus.

Fade In:

HIM:  We never say goodbye..we say, "see you later down the road."

ME:  So you're saying in the sequel, I'm still going to be sh*tting in a bucket?

HIM:  It's what we do..it's how we live.

ME:  F*CK!!!!!

FADE TO BLACK