In a TeleFunk

The ringing of the phone has always been associated with activity, and a range of emotions.

Back in grade school, the ringing of the phone, a land line mind you, likely meant it was the automated phone call from the Attendance Office to remind your folks that their beloved offspring had skipped earlier that day. So you ran full throttle to get to it before anyone in the family picked it up. In High School, the phone ring meant your friend was calling you to tell you how he'd finally made it past the next level in Doom3! You rushed to answer it, cuz you knew it was for you... sometimes you'd be surprised and maybe even get asked to the library to "study"... and then you'd hop skip & jump your way there.

In College, the phone ringing was probably an invite to the partie du jour, or a call back from a recent acquaintance you'd met at the last party. Usually the phone was answered with a hungover "huuuhhhlooo", or in some cases with just a .. "huh"

Once you graduate and start working, the phone calls change their tones. Now a phone ringing could mean you hadn't paid your gas bill on time. It could also be a voice on the other end telling you how much you could save on your cable bills if you moved to Satellite. Some years, it could be John Mccain calling you and asking you for your vote, ending the voicemail by identifying himself and letting you know that he approved that message.

Gone are the days when you made a beeline for the phone, risking a cardiac arrest and answered it on the first ring, just so "people don't think we have only one phone". Gone even are the days when you'd make a beeline for the phone and wait for a couple of rings before answering it so that "people don't think you have nothing better to do than answer a phone call". Gone even are the days where phone calls are necessarily answered. In today's call screening world, i'd wager a majority of calls are not answered.

Heck gone even are the days when the phone would ring as much.. now it just beeps with a "2 new text message" sign.

But the phones, they still ring. Nothing that exciting anymore. Its more a routine now, answering the call and dealing with it. Sometimes its work related, sometimes it about playtime.

Every now and then though you get a phone call that you'd much rather not have received. I wish I hadn't answered my phone earlier today.

-Canuck