I still hate my phone. It’s important for a relationship to have balance. It also hates me. I drop it, kick it, and generally abuse it when it frustrates me. My phone extracts its revenge by locking up at crucial moments and by employing the ancient torture method of butt-dialing.
It’s one of those touch-screen numbers, but not the iPhone I not so secretly covet. So anything in my pocket or bag activates that bad boy – pens, sticks of gum, keys, snickers, hand purifier, tampons, tennis racket – you name it. It’s been known to dial itself simply sitting on the passenger seat of my car. I think it might be possessed. In fact my propensity to drop and break my phone into seven pieces is really multiple attempts to exorcise the phone’s demons.
Maybe it’s because I never named the phone. Then again, I never named the phone because I never liked it. We had a tenuous relation at best, from the very beginning. But I do think things work better when you name them. Look at Beauregard! That cars been running for decades now. All he needs is a tune-up every year and the occasional pep talk. “Who’s a good car?!? Come on, Beauregard. Who’s the best accelerator?!?”
Computers, iPods, boats, cars, phones, bicycles should all have names. I named my new little netbook Bubbalicious (just Bubba for short). Our previous car was named Leonard until Rocco backed over that fire hydrant – then we just called him Lenny.
I suppose I could give him a name now and see if he starts working better. (At least I’ve assigned him a gender. That’s more than he deserves.) But nah, I’m just not feeling the love. I don’t think even the Buddha would put up with this guy’s tricks.
To make the butt-dialing even more problematic, he dials the same person every time. Every frickin’ single time. And is it a super close personal friend or family member that would just hassle me and give me shit? Can I just delete the contact because I know the number by heart? No, it’s my former boss. An incredibly busy and important man (who fortunately has an adorable sense of humor and doesn’t take much too seriously). He’s exactly the type of person you don’t want to bother with such silliness. I really can’t think of a single person in my entire contact list that would be worse. And then he’s always so accommodating and not at all offended, which just makes me feel scummier! God forbid I need to really talk to him ever. He’ll just assume I’m butt-dialing (as per usual) and hang up. Awesome.
Come to think of it, I’m not sure the phone’s animosity is directed at me. I think he hates all people. On several occasions, my brother has been holding my phone in the car, minding his own business, only to suddenly screech, “Who’s Michael? Shit, is that the butt-dial-ee? Oh crap, it’s happening again. How do I hang up? HOW DO I HANG UP??!?” No sooner than we sigh in relief, assuming we ended the call before it actually connected – the phone rings. “Did you call me?” Sigh.
Thom is afraid to put the phone in his shirt pocket in cold weather – just to avoid a possible nipple-dial. After Janet’s fiasco, the nipples of the world really don’t need any more bad press.
Last week I got an email from a friend and former co-worker that runs in the same circles as Michael. “So Michael told me you butt-dialed him on Sunday. Sounded like a nice outing with your family.” Thank goodness the phone didn’t do its trickery during Karaoke night…
I’m counting the moments until my next phone drop fiasco. I might have to accidentally step on some of those pieces before reassembling.