The Perils of the Telephone

When your phone works the way it's supposed to, you don't notice. But when the phone goes wrong, it's an ugly, ugly day. The worst things about the telephone:

1. The fax: Have you ever had a fax get the wrong number and they end up calling your home phone? If you pick up, you get the soothing "BEEP! BEEEP! BEEEEP! BEEEEP!" coming from their end. It's like the machine's trying to send you some top secret message in identical-sounding beeps. So what do you do? Annoyed, you hang up the phone. No less than a minute later, your phone rings again! You pick it up and, suprise! It's the machine again (probably miffed that you didn't listen the first time). Angry this time, you slam the phone down. When the phone rings for the third time, you resolve not to pick up the phone: show that fax who's boss. But you forgot about voicemail, didn't you? "Hey we're not here right now, but if you leave your name and number and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. Thanks!" "BEEP! BEEEP! BEEEEP!" Ahhhhh! You can't take it anymore! WHY ARE THEY STILL CALLING YOU? Didn't they notice that the people that were supposed to receive the message ten minutes ago still haven't gotten it? There's really no (logical and reasonable) escape from The Great and Scary Fax.


2. People with caller-id: (I have caller-id, myself, but for argument's sake....) Just who do they think they are? "I get to choose whether or not I think you are important enough for me to answer the phone." No, you should not get to choose who is important enough for to talk to you. You should have to interact with people whether you like it or not- isn't that what life is about? There is not always a choice. And besides, I don't like wondering whether people really aren't home, or if they see my name come up and decide I am not worth their time. Want someone to blame? Dr. Kazuo Hashimoto invented the first prototype.


3. Caller-id failure: On the flip side, for those of us with caller-id, we want it to work. We didn't buy the service so that "UNKNOWN" or "OUT OF AREA," pops up on our screen. Calls were unknown before we got caller-id. It was annoying, so we got caller-id. So I expect the phone to cough up who's on the other end. Nevertheless UNKNOWN makes us curious. "Oooh, unknown. Maybe it's a top-secret line, the FBI, or a serial killer concealing his number." Or could it just be one of those annoying political adds. Or a fax.
   


4. Complicated office phones: Have you ever tried to use one? Impossible. For God's sake, you just wanted to make a call! But now you're stuck: do you have to dial nine? Press line one? Two? Press private or mute? Wrap yourself in the telephone cord? WHAT will make your call go through?! Answering is even worse. Should you answer it? What if it's not for you? Do you have to press those line numbers again? How do you transfer a call? If you accidentally hang up on the caller, will you get fired? Why couldn't it have just been one of those phones that has twelve buttons: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,*,0, and #? Go ahead and get in the fetal position. I'll wait.
   


5. The Internet sound: Nearly extinct nowadays. But not five years earlier, remember? You picked up the phone to dial a friend, put it up to your ear to listen for a dial tone, and got blasted with "SHHHHHHHH!rrrrEEEErrrrrrEEEErrrrrWOOOSHHHHHH!!!!!" Then you had to go find whoever was online and argue with them over who's needs were more important. Then, after a show-down between the two of you, IF you won, you could finally make your call. Only to get the busy signal on their end: their family was online, too. Luckily this one has gone out of style as dial-up becomes unpopular, but I doubt we will forget those days (and I know you need stories to tell your grandchildren someday......."When I was a whipper-snapper, you had to make a choice: the internet or the phone..." That'll get 'em really riled up). Some things were just too horrific to repress.