hello operator

We've all got wheels to take ourselves away / We've got telephones to say what we can't say / We all got higher and higher every day... A lyric from the Flying Burrito Bros., a hippie country group from the late nineteen sixties. It's a simple passage from the song "Wheels," that I'd love to hear on a vinyl twelve inch. Lyrics and poetry can say the things we're searching for, but are often confined by rhyme, meter, and metaphor. A song or poem is not always literal, or always good if it is. One may open their heart through letter writing, but nothing opens up the pipes like the dialogue over a telephone.

It would be easy to tell of the obvious changes in telephone communication over the last several years. Speaking to someone in a coma since the nineteen eighties, a picture phone might take a little explanation. As would, the man on hands-free spasmodically speaking to no one as if schizophrenic, in the check out line. Or, the woman in an altercation in rush hour causing a pileup when she chucks her expendable track phone out the window. "That phone's gotta cost as much as her car! Right?"

Great moments in telephone technology abound. The telephone itself is evidence to support that if it can be conceived, it can be done. Think of all that's been done around a telephone. The two speakers stand line to line, dressed in black. With no one to see the way they tremble, they bravely exchange first I love yous. With fists clenched far from one another, they brazenly tear new assholes. With no tears to kiss away, they sever a love they can no longer face. The telephone gives voice as much as it carries it.

It's the origin of crank calling. My upstanding boss once cranked our store on a Friday night to impress a female coworker he was out with. He asked just how black the third shift operator was, who I was training with that night. Though, I suppose some sauce had to do with his courage. I crank 911 call centers when I can't help it. It seems my calling card number begins with 911. So, if I forget to dial the 1-800 number first, I end up dialing 911 and hanging up. I'm told I should report no emergency, but I'm also told they don't always buy that. Furthermore, I'm told I should just get a cellphone and move up with the world. Having a land line, and being old school with my clunky answering machine, at least, puts me back in the time of early nineteen nineties situation comedies. At the moment I've got a greeting set about how I'm away from my desk or meeting with a client. This invites a slew of crank messages, but wards off spam messages from telemarketers.

New legislation is being established to impose restrictions on where phones can be used. The way these things interrupt and take precedence, I'd rally for them to be used only in homes and businesses. The intent is to make drivers more attentive to the half ton of steel they're managing toward obstacles in the roadways. At a time when I did have a cellphone, I began crossing an intersection too engrossed in conversation to notice the red light. The driver beeped at me, and made me wait. It seemed fair to impose equal rights for the driver, persecuted for the phone negligence of others; and the pedestrian here, me, presenting the same risks. Touché, even.

The telephone is a distraction, and also a diversion. Early in the infancy of the Internet, there were bulletin board systems, accessed by standard phone line. Stock in telephone dating services, not to mention 1-900 numbers and Playboy surely began to weaken. I'm not sure how well operators for the hot phone sex lines made the transition to being webcam models. It's a whole other set of credentials. I've wanted to call a 1-900 number, just to see how off course I could get the conversation. Not to be rude, maybe even make her day. You've got to figure these phone sex girls get a little itchy as they're working, though. As long as a catheter isn't an issue, it wouldn't surprise me if riding the waves of verbal eroticism takes some actual self operation. And I would hope it might, for I believe women should enjoy their places in the workplace.

I've said it a few too many times: Are you having text? Or, (when in Canada) Ooh, you two are texting, eh? Who knew those three letters beneath each number on the keypad would have such function beyond quick memorization of a toll free number on TV. I'm still not sure how much more appropriate having sex in front of someone is--than sending private text messages, excluding the schmuck in the room with the land line. For hours one weekend, I roughly calculated the altitude of the satellites off which my two friends were bouncing ASCII strings to one another. It was no less obvious than passing notes during the SAT. Yet, as covert as they teach for the ASVAB of SEALS. Made me as paranoid as does THC or LSD, I would imagine... I have a small recording setup in my apartment. I wished I had a omnidirectional microphone plugged in. I'd have sampled their ringtones and played them back on the quadraphonic at odd intervals 'til they tweaked. Instead, once I'd estimated the amount of time for text delivery, I'd gesture at the phone in front of one of them and say, "Abracadabra!"

Like magic, thought transcends an unwelcome party over a distance of twelve feet. Sure it's capable of much more, such as chipping away at a solipsist philosophy. The voice on the other end can surely report nothing of the likes of chaos and daemons beyond the scope of the sole being. The telephone receiver can be a deceiver, however. Dropped calls can simulate irritation with the conversation, even on either end simultaneously. And this: I knew a girl who carried around a lot of photography equipment, so she was always out of breath when walking. I believe my exact words were, "Who are you fucking?" Which, brings up the topic of the telephone as a sex toy. I believe it not to be a myth, the placing of a call during sex. Don't ask me for tales of experience in it. I've never known someone so naughty. Say, the party on the other line were her boyfriend; I'd feel nothing but post masturbatory-like shame for a crime against mankind. Though, to get personal here, I was once speaking with a giggly phone buddy, from across the state. She kept asking me to guess what she was doing. "I don't know, what are you doing?" Finally, she gave me a clue, "Starts with an 'M!'" -- "Math? what what...? Ooh! You silly girl you!" And she had a laughing fit, then swore to my disappointment that she'd never do it again. Perhaps I should have been proud of her resolution. I had a friend with a Volkswagen van during these college years. Where was Malcolm that weekend?