Telephones

- One time I called 911 on a payphone to see if you can call 911 for free. I was in a movie theatre with my family at the time, and as soon as someone from Dispatch picked up I, hung up the payphone. A few seconds went by. Then I noticed a police officer in the lobby irritably walking towards my mother and myself, standing next to the payphones, and my mom flashed me a look at me that said “I always thought you were mischievous enough to get arrested, but I was hoping it would be a little later than age 7…”

·        - Now-a-days I avoid the phone in my living room as if it were a hungry rabid skunk… that’s where the home phones is and it rings frequently, which can get a little annoying... it’s mostly solicitors: the solicitors respond to my “Hello?” with a robotic shout of “One moment please,” and then there’s a second of silence and then Frank from some random newspaper says “Hello, are you Jill’s husband?” and I say “No, I’m her son,” and then I hang up.

·         -Worst of all, my home phone rings often because of people who my mom dates. One man who I’m told has the match.com username “Texas Ted,” won’t stop trying to get in touch with my mother; My mother and Texas Ted had only one date, it was cut short when my mother told Ted she was Jewish and Ted accused my mother of killing Jesus. He’s pretty bananas, he keeps on trying to get in touch to complain about the economy and how much he had to pay for a new set of tires.

·         -When I was little enough to fit I would crawl inside of an empty cardboard box, previously used as packaging for a refrigerator, and pretend like it was a spaceship. I would picture myself floating among stars and scratch at the cardboard on either side of me, pressing imaginary buttons that fired rockets and changed the color of the spaceship I was in. I got older though, I started imagining myself in all of my favorite stores instead, then later inside of a big spa with dozens of naked women (who liked men but weren’t afraid to experiment.) That was a good cardboard box.

·         -When I was six, from time to time, I would call my best friend Danny on the phone. We were too young to understand the rhythyms of a phone conversation. We would just shout over each other, and instead of listening to what Danny had to say I would just yell about how I preferred Jelly Beans to Candy Corn.