Nothing good can come from answering an “unknown caller” call on the phone, of this I am convinced. The other day a solicitor called. I informed him I was on the “no call list.” Big deal. Today, a woman from the Texas Department of Transportation called in response to an e-mail I sent last week complaining that their so-called “free” veterans specialty plates are not really free. This woman just managed to piss me off and make me hang up on her because of her arrogance. Another unknown caller strikes again.
When I was visiting my brother over the weekend in Brenham, Texas, — and this isn’t really an “unknown caller” but rather a call from someone I didn’t know — I apparently received a call from someone who sounded as if he was in a bar. I later looked up the area code and the only match I could find was Western Samoa. The duration was only 35 seconds. So how much is that going to cost?
Of course in the olden days, before Caller ID and before cellular you never knew who in the hell might call. Sometime it would be from a bill collector and I can remember my Dad’s familiar refrain: “Sue and be damned!” But back then in the days of yore there weren’t a lot of unsolicited calls unless you count prank calls kids would make such as “Is your refrigerator running? “Yes” “Well, you better catch it before it runs away.” Or, the all-time favorite call to the local grocery store: “Do you have Prince Albert (a tobacco) in a can? “Yes” “Well why don’t you let him out?”
The most irksome part of telephony back then was being on a party-line. I remember our phone was on a two-or-three party line with one of our neighbors, an “old widow woman” as we used to say in those days. She would spend hours and hours talking to her sister-in-law about canning vegetables. How anyone could spend that much time talking about vegetables without actually being a vegetable was beyond me.
Waiting for an unoccupied pay phone could also be quite trying. It always seemed like whenever you needed to use the pay phone the most was when you were stuck out waiting on some jerk who decided to take up permanent residence in the phone booth.
I do remember once, though, having no wait at all on a pay phone, well actually the duration was a record for me but there was no waiting on the particular phone.
It was quite a remarkable experience in fact. It was Boxing Day, Dec. 26, 1977, in downtown Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, where my Navy ship was docked for the holidays. My folks back in East Texas had told me to call them collect on Christmas so that is what I did. However, it wasn’t just as simple as picking up a phone and calling home.
For whatever reasons — the calling volume plus this being the old days — I had to call an operator and place the call then wait about six hours before the call went through. I can’t remember exactly why I was downtown. Nothing was open it being a holiday and the place was deserted. I don’t remember if there was a pay phone closer to the ship. But for whatever reason now lost, I picked out this particular phone booth downtown, placed my call and came back in six hours.
Now the combination of being a natural worry wart and being halfway around the world from my folks made me concerned that the whole exercise would fall through and I would be unable to talk to my parents on Christmas. But lo and behold, the phone in the booth I chose rang at almost the exact time it was supposed to and I had a nice chat with the folks — collect — that cost them about $100. But they said it was worth it and it certainly was worth it to me. Of course, I think it was actually just after midnight on the day after Christmas when I talked to them but as we used to say, close enough for government work.
So what is my point? Danged if I know. I started off somewhat miffed and wound up quite nostalgic, all over the subject of telephones. There must be something to learn from this. If you ever figure it out, there is no need to tell me. But be sure to give yourself a big pat on the back.
