March 19, 2002

Saturday morning at the Guin house, and the peaceful silence of the tranquil dawn is suddenly pierced by the glorious harmonizing of twenty-three separate telephones, coaxing the sleepy inhabitants of the house, gently pleading, it's time to wake up. It's a beautiful day, they sing, and there's a MasterCard representative who desperately wishes to speak with you.

So as I sit at my desk and let the telephone ring, I must pause, and reflect a bit on this miraculous little product of Canadian ingenuity. For, wrapped up in this tiny, unassuming yet shrill piece of technology, one may find decades of progress and-hang on.

Will somebody get that? Hey! Will somebody-dang it.

Hello?

What? You want to speak to mom? I don't know if she's in or not. hang on a sec.

HEY! HEY! Is mom here? HEY! MOM! MOM! TELEPHONE! HEY! MOOOooom! Dang it.

I'm sorry, I don't think she's in right now. Hello? . Hello? Yeesh.

Ok, so where was I? Right. Progress. So, anyway, thanks to this amazing device, ancient forms of communication such as yelling at the top of one's lungs have gone the way of the 8-trax and the slide rule, discarded forever on the scrap heap of outmoded ideas. Now, thanks to the phone, simply by dialing a few random numbers, a person can access almost any residence or place of business in the whole world and fill their air with a hundred loud and irritating screeches, hanging up as soon as they pick up the receiver. Without telephones-hang on.

Hello?

This is he.

Oh, I'm sorry, I'm not interested. Thank you.

No, I said I'm not interested.

Sorry. I only give out sensitive personal information through the U.S. Postal Service.

No, really, please don't transfer me to.

All right, that's it. *click*

Ok, now. Where was I? Oh, right. Without phones, think of how much of our time would be wasted every day! Now, thanks to the telephone, we can conduct our personal business loudly and expressively anywhere we want! Restaurants, airplanes, libraries, public restroom facilities. there's no limit now that virtually all of us and our mothers carry tiny, cute cellular phones! And don't forget that cellular phones are perfect for use while trying to merge across five lanes of heavy traffic. Think how sad your little son would be if, instead of being able to call you on your cellular phone whenever he wants, for example, to ask if he can play "Mortal Kombat vs. the Smurfs" instead of read his accelerated reader book, you actually made it home from work alive.

The benefits of telephones are almost infinite. Musical novelty rings. "Snakes". commercials with Carrot Top in them. the list could go on and on. Suppose, for example, that we wish to know whether the local Toys R Us carries Episode 657 of Dragon Ball Z on video (the answer: no). Without the telephone, we would have to take a whole hour of our precious time to drive over to Toys R Us and have a look. But now, thanks to the telephone, we can simply call up Toys R Us, where a friendly and courteous employee will put us on hold for 3 hours and then disconnect us.

The amazing things you can do with phones just pile up higher and higher. You can order pizza, order Japanese food, break up with your girlfriend, talk to real, professional psychics, learn the movie listings for three hours ago, sign up for all sorts of investment strategies and credit card plans with competitive interest rates, and most importantly, order more Japanese food. As you can see, I am very fond of the telephone and all the things that you may do with it.

However, believe it or not, there was a time when I had an irrational fear of telephones. Ha ha ! Can you believe it? Afraid of a little, plastic device that-hang on.

Hello?

Um. .

No, I will not accept a collect call from the Shelby County prison.

No, I said I would not . no, wait!

.

You know, if all you're going to do is breathe menacingly into the phone, you could have at least paid for the call yourself! *click*

Okay, I'm back now.

Yes, the telephone: perhaps the most important invention of the 20th century to me personally, right behind the personal computer, the automobile, the cruise missile, and the sucker that spins itself. Without the telephone, our lives would be meaningless drivel and wastes. With the telephone, our lives have been transformed - now they are meaningless drivel and wastes accompanied with continual, high-pitched ringing noises. So don't mind me if I violently rip the phone cord from the jack in the wall.

Call me. I dare you.