Believe me, whatever most of the products do, you probably don’t really care as long as your calls complete, you can text your teenager, because teenagers are One Nation under Text, and take pictures of strange things you happen to see, like say like a bad case of butt crack on the rail trail, and then email it to all of your friends. (And, no, I have no personal experience with that last one, I swear.)
If you think about it, every home must have at least two phones and then a cell phone for each occupant over the age of, let's say, 12. Iz just asked me recently when she’s getting a phone; I figure I’ll hold out as long as possible. It’s bad enough that Nathan texts me from his bedroom when I’m 10 feet away from him; I will not lose Iz to a cell phone, too!
I remember when my parents got a second phone in the house. We only had one phone in the kitchen. I think I was about 15 years old, and I thought it was going to be so cool to have a phone upstairs. Wow, 1977 seems like it was only yesterday, but alas, it’s now what 1952 was to me then – the olden days.
When I first arrived at my new-old job, I had no laptop and no phone. Within a day, I had a laptop, and someone casually said, “I’ll put in a work order for a phone.” Given this was a company that was phone-related, you’d think I would have had a phone the next day.
Well, I was so busy with work that I forgot about the phone. I didn’t really need the phone to do my job, and I had given up hoping that George Clooney was going to call and ask me if I’d go to the Academy Awards with him. So, why did I need a phone?
A week later, an auditor (hereafter known as Mr. Auditor) moved in across the aisle; he had a laptop and a phone in under an hour. As I saw the IT person set up his phone, I felt a bit slighted. I thought, “Humph. If I were working on the company’s financial future, I guess I would merit a phone, too.”
Soon after, he did not show up for work one Monday morning. By the time Wednesday morning rolled around, I knew he was gone. Did I take his phone?
No, but I thought about it. Then I thought better of the whole "having a phone" concept. People who had phones disappeared!
To satisfy my constant CSI curiosity, I looked myself up in the company phone directory. There were two problems. They had my old badge picture posted, which was taken five years ago; okay, that was really a surprise and not a problem, because theoretically, as far as work was concerned, I was still 43 and not 48. Then I glanced at my phone number; of course, I fully expected it to be blank.
I laughed out loud. Apparently, I had a phone number, even though I didn’t have a phone. In some Twilight Zone sort of way, this all would have made more sense to me if I had no phone number yet my picture had been replaced with that of Mr. Auditor.
Even funnier was that the phone number displayed was my old phone number. It was time to take charge of this phone issue; no, I didn’t put in a work order for a phone. I merely entered my cell phone number; after all, George Clooney still might want to drop a dime and give me a ring.
Another two weeks passed, and I was still phone-less; I really wasn’t bothered by it, because I knew I didn’t want my life to become a “Without a Trace” episode like it had for Mr. Auditor. I was startled (read “woken up”) when I was reading my chapter about MIB definitions one morning, because my cell phone rang. I noticed that it was a “work” number.
“Hello,” I said.
It was my boss.
He said, “Do you know that your phone number doesn’t work?”
I said, “Yes. It’s because I don’t have a phone. That's my old phone number.”
He said, probably wondering why I was content without a verbal communication channel to the rest of the company, “Well, you might want to get one.”
I said, “Err, yes. I’ll get right on that,” hoping that I could get my doctor to install a tracking device in my forearm, so that I would not end up in Siberia with Mr. Auditor, although he was kind of cute but so not in a George Clooney kind of way.
Anyway, I finally put in a work order for a phone. I didn’t do it right away. I waited a bit, pondering if Siberia was nice this time of year and would provide good exile for a Polish princess like myself.
This Monday, an IT person arrived at my cube with a phone. Look! It’s a potentially ringing black Polycom!
I was kind of proud of myself for not caving to the telecommunications pressure early on. The whole thing also reaffirmed the fact that I can be stubborn about some things, err, mostly silly things. But then again, who can’t be?
Of course, after I got my phone, I became immediately excited. I emailed my new number to a few of my friends; and, I waited and waited and waited for the phone to ring. Finally, advised of my disappointment in my new phone’s inability to ring after all I’d been through for it, one of my friends called me; of course, the first thing I said to him in jest was, “I told you not to call me here anymore!”
Another friend was surprised that I (apparently, Ms. Adventure when I'm not Her Royal Polish Highness) got so excited over a phone. It’s funny how things have changed so much in my transition from unemployment to employment. It was no longer about butt crack on the rail trail (again, not that I would know anything about that); it was now about my phone on my desk at my job that was waiting for George Clooney's invitation to the Academy Awards or a desperate call for help from Mr. Auditor in Siberia. ♥
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