Remember when you couldn't screen people's calls? Remember when you didn't have the luxury of looking at your ringing phone, checking the name on the display and giving a dismissive wave in its direction deciding you'd call somebody back when it was more convenient?
Remember when the phone would ring and it might be your mom or a crush of yours or opportunity knocking or an old friend, but you wouldn't know until you picked it up and said hello?
I miss that.
As someone who spent a fair amount of adolescent time waiting for the phone to ring, I love remembering the adrenalin jolt that accompanied the first surprising phone call from the guy of the hour. There was a tantalizing question mark hanging in the air whenever the phone rang. Who was calling, and what did they have to say?
Some telephone discretion is justified, of course.
But isn't it a little arrogant to presume when we see a name on the caller i.d. that we know what the caller wants and are therefore empowered to rate it against our other urgent priorities, like watching our favorite shows on DVR (another questionable advancement of humankind, in my view, don't get me started) or calling the people WE want to talk to, only to have THEM screen OUR calls?
How much more time does it require to take the call, say hello, voice-to-voice, and offer to call back? I call it the "busier than thou attitude," and I don't like it.
We're all busy. We have pressing matters. But pressing matters aren't always important matters. I'm not judging, because when my mom was living I sometimes screened her calls if I was "busy" doing something or other. Now, though, I really wonder what she had to say. And I'll never know.
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5 comments:
Proud to say we don't have caller ID -- for some of the very reasons you mentioned. SRW
One other important thing you forgot to mention: You can't crank-call people anymore with Caller ID!
Darn it!
Those were the daze . . .
Au contraire! You can crank call but you have to use your friend's phone. (Do you have Prince Albert in a can?)
I will say one thing in its defense. I've had a couple experiences where I was being...er...bothered (I hate to say "stalked") by individuals. When it came to receiving 10 phone calls a day from the same individual who refused to leave a message on the answering machine or take "no" as the answer to their outrageous request...well...I kinda loved caller ID. But I'll always answer when you call. I promise!
The only thing worse than called ID is call waiting ID. It says, "Oh wait, there's someone better on the other line. Can you wait in silence while I talk to someone more interesting?"
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