is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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Why I Should Not Live Alone, Part One: Ugly Telephone.
Why I Should Not Live Alone, Part One: Ugly Telephone.
You know, it has been fun talking on the phone to people now that I finally have phone service. It makes me feel not so far away from San Francisco. I was overjoyed when I heard Mr. Perrone's voice on the phone. And Evany's. And Natalie's. And it was so good to hear from Eric and find out that he lives VERY CLOSE to where I live.
But I have a problem. It's not the usual problem where I don't really like the phone. I recognize the good service a phone provides to people who live far apart from each other. And so I accept it as a blessing of an invention in that respect.
But. The phone in this apartment is all wrong. First: it is VERY UGLY. So ugly that I can barely stand to look at it. I do NOT want to talk on that thing. It actually stops me from making calls. Second: its ring is TERRIBLE. It's all "um, I'm ringing? Like, do you maybe want to answer me?" Its ring is the equivalent of the words of a girl who ends all her spoken sentences as if they were questions, even when they are not questions. It undermines its own authority by having a half-assed ring.
Clearly, I need a new phone.
More clearly, I need to get back into a house with Colleen or some other roommate whose presence helps to keep my control freak tendencies in check naturally.
In the meantime, there are no decent phones to be found! I want a corded phone, slightly old school, with a nicely weighted receiver. I want it to be touch-tone, so not old, just old school. I don't want some stupid cordless phone, nor some rinky-dink slim-line $10 special of a phone. The phone I have at home in San Francisco is perfect and it only cost $30 at the Target Greatland in Daly City. It's called The Metropolitan or something silly like that. It is a bit old-tyme-y but not in a precious way, and its receiver has a good heft to it. But I have scoured all the stores here and found nothing I could even settle for.
So when I next have some free internet time I'm going to have to go phone shopping online. So silly to spend more money on something like that. But apparently I am very picky about some really odd things.
At Adam's house Saturday morning, as he was making scrambled eggs for us all, I was describing my ugly phone* and talking about how hard it was to find an acceptable phone. Kelsey, Kate's sister said, "hey, we have one of those phones in the cupboard. My dad collects old phones, which is probably why you haven't found one. He has all of the old phones in New England." So she brought out a phone. It was the classic touch tone office phone circa late 70s early 80s. Perfect. An ugly fleshy color, which does not please, but I could settle. Then I picked up the receiver. It weighed NOTHING. It was made of air. No go. They laughed. But I knew Adam and Kate understood. They both have some very particular ways as well.
Before this week I had no idea I was so picky about telephones.
If I'm going to have a silly weightless cheap phone, it will at least be the funny "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" telephone my sister once gave me. Instead of ringing, it had a selection of phrases it would say in the voice of the talking cat from that silly sitcom. For instance: "I sense someone is calling me!" and "Look who's popular!" What it lacked in phone purity it made up for in wacktastic dorkitude.
It broke. All the king's horses and men could not put it back together.
Teenage Witch phone is dead. Long live the Metropolitan!
*The ugly phone: It's from Radio Shack. I learned this when I went to Radio Shack to see if they had any acceptable phones and the first thing I saw was my freaking ugly phone. So it is big and square and fleshy-colored. It has HUGE touch tone buttons, and then across the top it has three "emergency" buttons for police, emergency/911 and fire. But the huge emergency buttons don't say "police," "fire," etc. They have pictures of a police shield, a flame, and a red cross on them. So it's like a phone for a blind-going old person or an illiterate person. A blind-going old person or an illiterate person with very bad taste in telephones. It offends the eyes. It must go into hiding.
4:12 p.m. - September 26, 2004
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