Telephones

Recently I noticed something. When a person calls me at home, there is an automatic assumption that I know who is on the line before I press "talk". I don't. We never subscribed to Caller ID. We work around this by simply not answering the telephone when we do not wish to talk to anyone. We don't answer at dinner time, or after 9pm.
We screen our calls.
More frequently than I care to admit, we simply do not know where the phone is at any given moment. Nobody seems to be able to replace the receiver when they complete a call.
I am old enough to admit to living in a time when we did not even have answering machines.

Our phones had cords that you twirled around your fingers, neck, kitchen appliances, etc. while you talked. I remember that the telephone in my parent's bedroom had a special sterling silver sleeve on the receiver with our name or initial engraved on it. We were not allowed to use that phone. Nor were we entitled to a telephone in our room. Cordless phones didn't exist.

I remember a general rule that you should let the phone ring 10 times before assuming that the call recipient was not home. If you were home 10 rings was certainly too annoying to ignore. All of our angst-ridden hormonal teen-aged calls were made in the kitchen. Or in the dining room as far as the cord would stretch in an attempt at some privacy.

Can you imagine your telephone ringing 10 times? Do they even do that any more? If my telephone rang and rang without answer the caller would probably assume the worst....and call the police or fire department.

I hear people hang up, and sense the annoyance in their voice if forced to leave a message. I hear my cell phone ringing in my purse seconds later. I get annoyed too. There are times that I don't want to be available. I don't want to hear a message or get a text, or have someone pop up on my computer screen while I am working, for that matter. I don't want to chat on a phone while I am in the grocery store, or in my car.

Or when I am spending time with my children.

I don't want to dig around in my purse to find my phone and turn the ringer off, or to push a "do not disturb" button on the answering machine--making a conscious effort to be unavailable.

Instead, I want to make a conscious effort to be available.
On my own terms.
I want it to ring 10 times.
I want that phone with the sterling silver monogrammed cover.