Dialed Out

You know what's weird? Being a phone that can't make calls anymore. Not that I'm complaining - at least I didn't end up in some landfill like most of my friends from the store window. God, that feels like forever ago. 1962. Kennedy was president. Beatles hadn't even made it big yet. Vietnam was just something in the newspaper nobody really talked about.

Funny how memory works. Or whatever you'd call it for a phone. Can't remember what I cost or what day of the month it was, but I remember Harold whistling "Return to Sender" when he walked into the store. Elvis was everywhere that year. Couldn't escape him if you tried.

Harold - that's my person, or was my person, I guess - he picked me out on some random Friday. Wasn't even looking for a phone, far as I could tell. Just wandering around the store, killing time maybe. The salesman kept shoving this awful pink Princess phone in his face. "Latest model! Very popular with the ladies!" Sure, buddy. Whatever you say. Think his name was Stan. Had this weird mustache that twitched when he talked.

But Harold? He kept coming back to me. Just a plain black rotary phone. Nothing special. Picked me up three times before he decided. I liked his hands - careful, you know? Like he was handling something that mattered. Not like some people who'd come in and just grab at phones like they were picking out potatoes.

Shit, I'm getting sentimental. Phones aren't supposed to get sentimental. We're just supposed to sit there and ring when we're told. Connect A to B. Simple stuff.

You should've seen his study though. Dark wood everywhere, leather chair that creaked when he sat down, shelves stuffed with books he probably never read. Put me right by the window. Sun would hit my dial around 3 every afternoon, make it shine like I was something fancy instead of just, well, me. Had this brass pen holder next to me that he was stupidly proud of. Gift from his dad or something. Always kept it polished.

The stuff I heard over the years... Man. First time he called Sarah? Thought he was having a heart attack, he was breathing so hard. Had to hang up twice before he got through a whole sentence. Never told her that part - still hasn't, far as I know. They got married six months later. I was there when he called his mom to tell her. "Ma, I met someone." Like he was announcing the Second Coming or something.

Remember when phone numbers were actual words? Not completely - that was before my time - but people still said them that way sometimes. "Murray Hill 5-9975" instead of just the numbers. Had a ring to it, you know? Poetry almost. Now it's all area codes and keypads. Progress, I guess.

Kids came along. Michael was this serious little guy, practiced dialing numbers like he was training for the Olympics or something. Used to make these little charts, writing down how long it took him to dial different numbers. Who does that? But that was Michael all over. Even at six, he was planning something.

But Jenny? Jesus. That girl could talk. Dragged me all over the house by my cord, wrapped it around furniture, herself, probably the cat a few times. Harold'd spend half his evenings untangling it. "Jenny!" he'd yell up the stairs. "What did you do to the phone?" Like it was my fault. She had this thing about Tommy Martinez in eighth grade. Called her friend Lisa every single day to talk about him. Every. Single. Day. For months. Never did end up dating him, far as I know.

Funny thing about being a phone back then - you weren't just some gadget people carried around. You were part of the furniture. Part of the family, almost. When that ring cut through the house, everyone stopped. Could've been anyone - grandma checking in, dad's boss, Jenny's latest crush. Every call was like... I don't know, like opening a door to somewhere else.

And you had to be home to get the call. Imagine that now. Missing a call meant actually missing it. None of this voicemail stuff. No "I'll call you back." You were either there or you weren't. Made things more... real somehow.

Business calls were different back then too. Harold had this special voice he used. "Harrison speaking." All proper and formal. Could always tell when it was his boss - he'd sit up straighter, like the guy could see him through the phone lines. Had this advertising agency downtown. Did pretty well, I think. Lots of late-night calls about campaigns and deadlines and budgets. Bunch of stuff that made no sense to me.

The power went out once, during this huge storm in '73. Wind howling, trees down everywhere. But phones like me? We didn't need electricity. Had our own power through the phone lines. Sarah spent three hours calling everyone she knew, making sure they were okay. Harold just sat there in the dark, listening to her voice, watching the rain against the window. That was the night Jenny decided she wasn't afraid of storms anymore. Sat next to her mom, listening to all those calls, feeling useful maybe.

The beginning of the end showed up in '85. Came in a fancy box with pictures of people walking and talking like they'd discovered fire or something. Cordless phone. Sarah had been dropping hints since Linda next door got one. "So convenient," she'd say, real casual-like. "Being able to talk while you cook..."

Harold held out longer than I expected. Loyal guy. But you can't fight time, right? Started with just using the cordless for quick calls. Then longer ones. Then I was just sitting there, gathering dust, waiting for rings that came less and less often.

First they stuck me in a corner. Then the kitchen. Then... yeah. The attic. Ever spend time in an attic? Don't. Just sitting there with a bunch of other old junk, listening to a typewriter ramble on about some novel it wrote back in '73. Pretty sure it was lying about that novel. Had this slide projector for company too, kept clicking through vacation photos in the dark. Maine, 1969. Florida, 1972. Christmas every year until '81. Gets a bit weird in an attic, let me tell you.

Lost track of time up there. Dust everywhere. Could hear things changing downstairs - voices getting shorter, quicker. Sunday calls with grandma turning into five-minute check-ins. Everything speeding up, spinning faster. Cell phones started showing up. Heard them through the floor - different rings, different voices. People talking while they walked around, while they drove, while they did everything else. Multitasking, they called it. Progress.

Then this kid shows up. Emma. Harold's granddaughter. She's got his hands, funny enough. Found me buried under what felt like fifty years of Christmas decorations. But instead of just saying "oh cool, old phone" and moving on, she actually picked me up. Cleaned me off. Started asking questions.

She's got this thing about old stuff. Design student. Keeps talking about "user interface" and "tactile feedback." Whatever that means. But she gets it, you know? Gets that things used to be different. Not better maybe, but different.

Now I live in her living room. Design students come by sometimes, hold me like I'm some kind of ancient artifact. "See the ergonomics?" Emma tells them. Like I'm some kind of textbook example. I mean, I guess I am, but still. Weird being studied instead of just used.

She's got all these stories about me now. Some true, some... well, let's say "enhanced." Tells people about how phones like me helped build communities, connected families, carried history through our wires. Makes me sound a lot fancier than I am. I just did my job, you know?

Harold visits. He's old now. Really old. Hair all gone white, hands shake a little. But when he picks up my handset? Those fingers still know exactly what to do. Muscle memory's a hell of a thing. Sometimes he sits there telling Emma stories about the old days. Some I remember, some I don't. Memory's funny like that.

Late at night sometimes, Emma just sits there spinning my dial. Real slow. Click... click... click. Don't know what she's thinking about. Maybe trying to imagine all the conversations I've carried. Or maybe she just likes the sound. Wouldn't blame her - it's a good sound. Solid. Real. Not like these new phones with their beeps and buzzes.

Can't make calls anymore, obviously. World's moved on to different signals, different wires. Sometimes I wonder what that'd be like - being one of these new phones. All glass and electricity, carrying little movies and pictures and whatever else they do now. Must be exhausting, being expected to do everything.

But you know what? I'm good. I did my job. Carried voices across cities, across countries. Connected people when they needed connecting. Every scratch on my casing? That's a story. Every fingerprint? That's a memory. Got a chip in my handset from when Jenny dropped me during some drama with Lisa in tenth grade. Scuff marks from Michael's action figures. Coffee ring from when Harold fell asleep at his desk that time his big campaign was due.

Some people call me obsolete. Fair enough. Can't argue with facts. But I'm still here, aren't I? Still solid. Still making that same click-click-click, same as I did in '62. 

World keeps spinning faster. Kids these days probably wouldn't even know how to use me. But my dial? Takes exactly as long as it always did to make its way around. No shortcuts. No speed dial. Just ten numbers, waiting their turn.

Guess some things are worth taking your time with.

Even if nobody's really calling anymore.

Funny thing is, I can't remember the last number somebody dialed on me. Weird, right? All these memories, all these stories, but that last number? Gone. Maybe it's better that way. Let's you pretend there might still be one more call coming. One more story to tell.

Click... click... click...