Phone Rant in Postcards 4

“Don’t you think you could have said that better?” George asked me this morning after my friend of many years hung up on me.

After a long, long pause, I answered, “Yes, I guess I could have.”

It was still time to say what I was thinking, but I could have found a kinder gentler way of putting it.

For years when she phones me, I ask, “Are you driving?” I have also said mildly, “Are you washing dishes?” Usually she is driving when she calls me. For years I haven’t said a thing about it. This morning, I said what I have been thinking for years.

I have to confess that I hate phones. After five years of a life spent continually on the phone, today I rarely use it. This dear friend lives a getting busier life in a very big city yet insists we talk every week. That’s great if she is sitting and I am sitting, but that’s not what happens. She fits her calls to me in with walking the dog, driving with all the attendant sounds, cleaning house with all the attendant sounds, and driving…et al.

“I really wish we could talk when you are not driving,” I told her this morning….and the conversation went rapidly downhill from there. Not good.

Though we have a standing appointment, she fits talking to me in where she can in her busy schedule. I can’t hear a lot of what she says against the background traffic noise combined with my tinnitus. And too, I think it rude. I feel much like a second class citizen put on a side burner and fit in only when it’s convenient.

Yes, I could have put it better.

• Himself: Enjoying his work a lot and feeling fine.
• Herself: Dropped the camera again…it just flew out of my purse. Seems to be working ok tho.
• Reading: Just finished a Reich.
• Balance: Ommmmmmmmmmmmmm.