I have so many pet peeves that I am beginning to think that
I should open up a pet store or maybe move to a farm. But
there are just so many "little things . . ."
Take the telephone.
Don't you just love it when you are in a hurry, maybe even
in the middle of running out of the house, and suddenly you
remember that you simply must tell a friend one
quick, tiny, little item before you leave home?
It happens to me all the time, and is especially problematic
because I am of the "No, I don't own a pelephone"
generation.
So, in a frantic dash, I quickly dial Gitty G.'s phone
number. My heart leaps with an unparalleled feeling of joy
if, after only two or three rings, someone quickly picks up
the phone.
Unfortunately, often that joy is quite short lived because
instead of quickly getting my friend Gitty and thus being
able to immediately blurt out whatever I had to tell her, I
get, instead, a small, tiny, sweet, little lisping voice
that slowly -- v-e-r-y slowly -- drawls, "Helloooo. Thissss
issss the Geeeee residenccccce. Who iszzz thiiiiissss
speeeeaking, puleeeeessssse?"
Darling little three-year-old Leah'le. So, in a hurried
voice, I quickly respond, "Leah'le, is Mommy home? Please
tell Mommy to come to the phone quickly."
But Leah'le's slow, drawn out responsible response
invariably is "But whooooo izzzzz thissssss?"
I love it. Pet Telephone Peeve #1.
Why do people allow under-10-year-olds to answer a
telephone? And, if they must, why not teach the little
toddlers to simply pick up the phone, say "Hello" and
immediately turn the phone over to whomever was requested,
or at least, to a fast-paced over-10-year-old? Which brings
me to my Telephone Pet Peeve #2.
Why, no matter what the age of the receiver-picker-
upper, is it necessary, after being told with whom I want to
speak, why-oh-why does almost everyone have to know "Who is
this?"?
Does it really make such a big difference who is calling? If
I ask to speak to Sara or Hinda or Mommy or Mrs. V., or
whomever, what does it really matter who I am? I'm not
infectious over the line...
Why do you have to know who is calling? If I am Mrs. K. and
not Mrs. L., does that mean that you will not let me speak
with your mother/ sister/ brother? Or even worse, that
she will tell you to tell me that she can't talk to
me now? (But to Mrs. Q she could?)
Everyone is guilty of this one. Even me sometimes. It seems
to be some kind of an automatic response. Is it curiosity? A
type of budding yenta-hood?
Bur whatever it is, there you have it: that "Who is this
calling?" is my PET PEEVE # 2.
My PET PEEVE # 3 is the pelephone. Pelephones, all the time,
everywhere. Dingle, dingle, dingle. Bach, Mozart, rock.
Everywhere, everyone, at any time.
Big shots, little shots, people who probably haven't gotten
an urgent phone call in six years. Everyone has to have a
pelephone.
No, my Pet Peeve is not that I mind having to concentrate
hard to not overhear what the woman behind me on the bus is
reminding her husand to purchase at the drug store. That I
can handle.
It's that, if you aren't a paskening rov, or a
doctor, or in some other profession that you could be needed
urgently, and/or if you don't have little children (because
they always need you urgently), then what is this pelephone
business for, other than to allow you to get away with being
disorganized and forgetful?
O.K. well, let's say that I'm just behind the times.
Criticism accepted. I guess you can call it progress that
you no longer need to review a shopping list before sending
someone to the local grocery store to buy a few things, but
instead to continually add to and update that shopping list
once the person is already there in the store going up and
down the aisles.
O.K. Maybe this lack of need to think things through
beforehand and/or the fact that it is no longer necessary to
anticipate possible complications (since everyone is
immediately accessible via their pelephone anyway), is,
maybe, a positive improvement.
But, please, when you are talking to me or going
somewhere with me in a car or on a bus, please, please...
show a little courtesy and only answer your pelephone if it
is really necessary. And if you really must answer it,
please, please make it a short conversation.
Because while you are happily babbling on your pelephone for
"only a second," it seems to me, who is silently sitting and
waiting for you, like hours.
I'm a little lost if this is Telephone Pet Peeve # 3 or #4,
but now I've reached my "biggest Telephone Pet Peeve."
TELEPHONE PET PEEVE #5.
The Click.
Oh, The Click. That ubiquitous, omnipresent, omnipotent
click. It interrupts conversations, it disrupts confidences,
and it stops everything and everyone in mid-sentence.
"I'll be right back. I just got A Click."
And that's it.
Time stands still as I wait with bated breath and the
telephone receiver in my hand, wondering if we will remember
where we were in our conversation, while simultaneously
considering if I will have the time to run into the other
room, grab a glass of water, and return, before my phone
partner returns from her Click (I'm not always on a
walkie-talkie portable phone).
Since of course I am afraid that I probably won't have the
time to get back, I just sit there, patiently frustratingly
fuming, until, quite a few minutes later, which feels like
double or triple the actual time, my phone partner finally
deigns to return to me.
And to answer that constantly asked question that I
invariably get in response, "So what is wrong about it if I
called you?" I guess the answer then is that it is only
theft of my time, though of course, it is still insulting as
well. Can you imagine speaking to someone important, a
doctor, teacher or rebbetzin, or someone much older, and
then suddenly telling her, "One minute, I got a Click"?
However, even more frustrating than all of the above is the
wondering. Wondering how long this wait will take, and
wondering if the other, new person on the line is much more
important or interesting to speak to than I am.
I mean, how interesting can my phone partner think our
conversation is if at the first click she is ready to jump
away from speaking with me and run over to a conversation
with someone else? No, I'm obviously not speaking of those
infrequent times when one is waiting for an urgent phone
call from a child or husband or boss. Everyone understands
jumping to that click. It's the "I wonder who that is
calling me" click response that I find so irritating.
Yes, this certainly gives me a chance to improve my
middos such as patience, judging favorably, pride
etc.
And it certainly is a marvelous opportunity to evaluate the
quality of my phone conversations: are they really
important, and a good use of time?
Am I utilizing the technology that Hashem gave us for the
good? For speaking Torah, for planning mitzvos and
doing chessed? Or am I merely allowing the phone to
trip me up by making it possible for me to engage in blah-
blah talk, thus inadvertently squandering Hashem's precious
gift of time? It's easy to get lost in a fog of
conversation, to become oblivious to the time passing and to
forget that a conversation should ideally have a purpose,
not just be a ramble through the moors of time.
I guess the phone company is really the winner of all this,
since I usually don't wait for more than the proverbial
minute after my phone companion has gone to her Click.
Usually I just simply hang up and go about my business,
letting my erstwhile partner call me back if she wants
to.
Which is also a good way of finding out if she thinks that
our phone conversation was really worthwhile or necessary,
or not. And to see if she was really interested in it or
not. And thus to really evaluate whether our discussion on
the phone really had any true value to it or not.
[Ed. Some advice concerning the annoying Click. For less
than $1 per month! you can have Bezek record all incoming
messages, even the ones that come in while you are talking
and the other party hears a busy signal. This is called
Ta Koli Plus, and allows you to disregard all Clicks
forevermore without losing the calls].
