The Telephone

Not sure anyone else has this problem other than myself .... although I happen to randomly know that Tori Spelling suffers as I do.  We (look at me using the collective as if I actually know her...I don't!) dislike using the telephone.  I mean I really dislike this mode of communication.  I will go out of my way to avoid picking up the phone and it doesn't matter who is calling; my mother, sister, best friends or husband.  Don't take offence though if you call and I don't pick up; you'll always be calling at a bad time!  Too early or too late, too busy 'doing', too sleepy, too moody, too exhausted, too frazzled, too stressed.... literally the list of excuses is endless!  Of course, I do pick up occasionally and that's when I am feeling too generous!!!  It's not about the person on the end of the phone.  Must stress it's never to do with the person calling me - do not want to offend anyone!! It's more to do with my time and how little of it I have to myself.  What I do need is for people to leave me a message, you see if they don't I assume it was nothing important and I will eventually get round to calling you back - it could just be in one month's time!  I prefer a simple text.  Or an email.  Or a letter - does anyone do this anymore?  Or better still, a visit or an invitation to visit.  Face to face time - now that's my thing. 

I've not always been this way though.  When I was a teenager I used to be on the phone for hours and hours even when I had literally just left that person that I'd spent the day with!  Of course it was attached to a wall then so it was also obligatory to lie on the kitchen work surface or on the floor with my legs resting on the wall in front of me as I held my epic conversations.  Now, I realise it must have driven my family to distraction not to mention how much it must have cost them in phone bills. 

I am wierd right?  I do know this to be true but I know why I dislike the telephone so much.  See, when I was young and I used to ring my friends for hours at a time and they to me, but it wasn't often.  It was a gratifying experience.  Always popped the phone down in it's nook with a happy sigh and laughter ringing in my ears from contented conversations (yes, I know I am in danger of sounding very Enid Blyton!)  Now the mobile has taken that away.  There are no phone hours to look forward to - the mobile has made it a constant and a necessity.  I also used to be in sales and the first port of 'call' (sorry) would be the phone - a cold call - telephone at it's worst.  I was good at it but towards the end of my sales career I began to resent the telephone more and more.  Call and sell.  Call and book an appointment. Call and get the outcome to the sale. Call back and beg!  Calls are all logged and you HAD to make at least 25 cold calls a day! Pah!  Now in my current workplace I am on the phone for all sorts of other reasons all day.  So am I really that strange to want the phone to stop being invasive when I get home? 

This all said but I have to confess I had to have the iphone 4 immediately when it went on sale, not for calling though for the access to the web, to Twitter, to FB, to my emails and Ping.  (I am also obcessed with mini games such as Angry Birds, but that's a whole other blog post!)

If I call you in the future, don't think of this blog post, think to yourself, she's feeling uber generous and then you can always get your own back by diverting me to voicemail!