themiseryguts

Good morning… and Happy New Year to you all.  I held back on this one yesterday, after all, who wants to start a new year on a grumping note?  The thing is, I did get reminded yesterday what a terrible invention the telephone is.

The last phone I actually liked!

In my house (or should I say “our house”?) I generally avoid answering the telephone.  In fact, I pretty much avoid using it at all as much as possible.  I dislike the phone.  I prefer web based forms, instant messaging and email.  I am not a fan of text messaging, I don’t even understand the majority of messages that are sent to me as they contain such idiocies as “hello m8 hw r u feeling grt to hear uv hd a gr8 time” or some other nonsense.  This is ten times worse when you are receiving it from someone of my age.  You almost expect it from “the kidz”.

Anyway, back to the reasons I hate the phone in its original sense.  I mean, house phones… land lines… they are the worst in fact.  You generally don’t know who is calling you (unless you have caller ID enabled) and so is that call from someone you actually WANT to speak to?  Is the call even for me?  Probably not… the thing is, surely if someone wants to get hold of me then they can call me on my mobile!?!  This is one of the reasons I don’t want to answer that damned land-line… it’s probably not even for me!

So anyway, the fact that I don’t know who it is, what or who they want is only part of my problem with it.  Over the years I’ve noticed that humans (dogs don’t generally answer the phone) seem to have become conditioned to picking up the phone no matter what it is they are doing at that time, like this small bleeping, ringing irritating device in the corner of the room somehow trumps everything else that’s going on.

“Whats that?  We’re sat down to lunch?  Never mind that… someone is phoning us… lets answer it.  Whatever the person on the other end wants is surely more important than having our dinner!”

“Oh my fucking god!!!  The phone is ringing… I no longer give a shit what you were saying to me face to face… the phone is ringing… the world may stop turning if I don’t answer!”

I mean, seriously, what is going on?  I’ve experienced this many times at home and at work.  My job requires me to travel hundreds of miles across the country to visit clients and it is intensely irritating to find that when I’ve made the effort to negotiate hundreds of miles of Britain’s motorways, traffic jams, public transport and generally crap hotels, putting vast distances between me and my loved ones and neglecting to spend time building Lego with my children (deep breath) that I find that I sit down with somebody whose phone then rings and they say “hang on a minute, I just need to get this…”

WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN “I NEED TO GET THIS” – THE CRETINOUS FUCK HEAD ON THE OTHER END OF THAT PHONE LINE HAS MADE THE GARGANTUAN EFFORT TO LIFT THE RECEIVER AND PUNCH SOME BUTTONS AND YOU PUT THEM BEFORE ME!?!?!?!??  WHAT THE FUCK!?!?

Let’s face it, you would never do this  in person would you?  Rock up to a bunch of people having a meal, or in a meeting and without so much as saying “excuse me” begin to start blathering on about whatever pointless and generally unimportant nonsense you generally go on to phone people about?

Possibly the only phone you should ever interrupt what you are doing for…

Jeez – just stop with the fucking phone answering… if it’s not the red bat-phone then it’s probably not urgent.  Those people who bothered to be physically with you are the ones most deserving of your attention.

Curiously I just noticed that my mobile phone has done me one huge favour lately, its experiencing the latest iPhone bug meaning that its got stuck in “Do Not Disturb” mode… top class!  I hope they make this a feature!