Sunday Scribblings: Telephones

Telephones. That’s the prompt for this Sunday’s Scribbling. I suppose there are three things that I think about when I hear the word. I might as well tell you about them.

The first is magic. Telephones are magical. They can take your voice and instantaneously transmit it to the other side of the world, as clearly as if you were standing next to the person on the other end of the line. Obviously, this can only be attributed to magic. I’m sure that someone somewhere could explain to me (very probably in a condescending tone that would get on my nerves) that really telephones work by sending out electrical impulses that are received by the other end or what have you. I don’t know how they actually work, as you see. I think it’s magic. Because even if it were little electrical impulses and suchlike, how the hell do all the wires stay connected and the impulses all go the right places and furthermore, how do they travel that fast, and even further, how can they replicate my voice? I mean, they’re little electrical impulses. They don’t have vocal cords!

Oh, and mobile phones and internet telephony? You know, where it goes out over the wireless? How come that doesn’t get misdirected ever? Or does it? Do we send out signals in expanding spheres so that maybe sometime, some hundreds of years from now, archaeologists of the future will do their research into the more eclectic areas of our ancient culture by taking spaceships out a few hundred radio-years and tuning in with signal interceptors? I wonder if they’ll be able to reconstruct my social security number from the signals my mobile gave out when I pushed the buttons to enter it into the substitute-teaching network.

But anyway, like I said, phones are magic, without a doubt.

The second thing that I always think about when I actually think about phones, actually stop to consider them, is how much they’ve changed. I remember when mobile phones were these huge things as big as a couple of cucumbers stuck together. I’m 23, but I have a good memory. They were the thing back then, these giant mobile phones, and the coolest people in the movies had them. You knew they were cool because they had these high-tech phones. But today? Someone with a phone like that would be laughed at! These days, mobiles are as big as a couple of sheets of paper stuck together. And the things they can do! I have an iPhone, and it’s like having an extremely small laptop. Incredible. I wonder what those people with huge mobiles in the late eighties and early nineties would have said if they had seen it.

And the last thing about phones that always strikes me is this: Why are so many people married to them?! It’s like mobiles are the most important thing on earth. So many times I’ve been talking to someone and their phone rings and it’s “Oh, excuse me, I have to take this now.” What is that all about? If that happened in a personal conversation, it’d be considered so rude. You’re talking to your friend and suddenly another friend comes up and taps her on the shoulder, and they have a conversation between themselves, before the other friend leaves without so much as a hello. It’d be so rude. But it’s okay if it happens on a phone, because everyone seems to understand that phone calls must be taken. And I’ve gotten into cars with people, only to have to turn around and drive back fifteen minutes later because they forgot their phones. Because, you know, a person wouldn’t survive three hours without a phone.

But even despite this fanatical devotion that phones inspire in some people, I really have to say that I like them very much. They give me something to ignore that won't have its feelings hurt when I do. And they’re magic. You have to love magic.