[lit-ideas] Re: more cell phone spottings
- From: david ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2005 22:07:48 -0800
On Nov 22, 2005, at 10:23 AM, Paul Stone wrote:
TF:1. Did you miss the 'phone before you had one?>>
JK:I missed not having a walk-about phone. I remember thinking
how cool it would be if someone figured out a way to make a phone
that didn't have to be latched to the wall with the cord.
I thought one of the funniest things in Napolean Dynamite was his
EXTRA long phone cord. Thousands of kitchens in the seventies had
these. Ours made it three rooms over. After a week's worth of
hangups and answers, playing with the cord, spinning around, etc.
the cord was wound up like an elastic on a balsa wood airplane.
Then you'd have to pull it out in successive lengths and let the
receive spin itself back to virtually straight. Then put the 10
foot cord back down the wall behind the dishwasher.
Those were the days my friend.
British telephones only had one length of cord.
Quaint memory. A friend decided to play a prank on his aunt. We
boys went into a telephone box, dialed the number, inserted coppers
into the slot and pressed button A. Once the conversation began my
friend, who had a deep voice, impersonated someone who worked for the
phone company. He was doing a survey, he said, and wanted to know
how long her telephone cord was. She was Cornish. See if I can
remember how the conversation went.
"What you mean the one that plugs into the wall or the one that
connects the bit I have in my hand to the bit with the dial on it?"
"The latter, madam, is what concerns us."
"Well, I think it's about normal. How would you like me to measure it?'
"Is it perhaps as long as your arm?"
"I'll see. Yes, I think I'd say it's as long as my arm."
"And if you were to hold it straight up and down beginning at your
nose, where would it reach?"
"Counting the thing I'm speaking into or not counting?"
"Counting, Madam, counting."
"Well, it comes down a bit low."
"How low would that be?"
"I don't exactly like to say, but a good long way."
"I shall record, 'A good long way.' And is it one of the straight
ones or does it have some other characteristic?"
"It's kind of round and roundy. All wrinkly like. Like everyone
else's I think. I haven't seen a straight one in ages. Old Mrs. P.
was the last I can remember."
Somewhere thereabouts we ran out of money and the pips gave us away.
The "pips" were the noise that indicated your three minutes were up.
David Ritchie
Portland, Oregon
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