Tag Archives: payphones

Non-fiction

Encounters in the Coffeeshop

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I’m sitting in the coffee shop this morning behind a man who blows his nose too often. I know because he sits behind me every morning and talks to his little dog and sings to whatever music is playing in here. I put my headphones on so I can’t be distracted.

The other day, I think it was Sunday, a man whom I’d seen sitting on the sidewalk several times asked to use my smartphone to make a call to his wife. He didn’t look like a husband. And where was his phone? Who would marry a guy without a phone? These thoughts ran through my mind while he was in my face, and I felt pressured enough to where I let him use it, which was foolish of me. I should’ve said no, but he was desperate and forceful.

“You gonna be here?” I asked him.

“Yes, I’ll be right over here.”

So I dialed the number for him and recognized the area code as being local. He took my smartphone and used it near me. I watched him the whole time to make sure he wouldn’t do anything funny with my phone, such as walk away with it or do something malicious that would get me in trouble. I’m never going to loan him or anyone else my phone again. He had the real audacity to ask me in the first place, but I figured this was a friendly town. I’m no longer living in Los Angeles, where I was so used to shady people.

I wrote about cell phones a few weeks ago and how payphones don’t exist anymore. This dude could’ve really used one instead of asking me to use mine. This is the problem with society: no payphones anywhere anymore. So desperate people have to ask to use my phone. It isn’t cool.

He also asked me what time it was. I figure you’re in a bad place if you can’t find out for yourself, and you have to ask someone else. Decades ago, people used to ask other people for the time, and it was a polite gesture to give it to them. But that politeness doesn’t fly anymore. It’s considered harassment now if you ask someone. Like the saying goes, she wouldn’t give you the time of day. Just how many people would go through the trouble of giving the time to an absolute stranger? It’s rare. I wouldn’t have the nerve to ask someone.

I’m pretty good at guessing the time, with a highly-functional internal clock, without needing to look at my watch. I don’t even need a watch, but I wear it to count my steps. It syncs with my phone, so my phone can record all my activity. I’m married to this thing. I can’t live without it when it runs out of battery power. I get anxious. It needs to track what I’m doing all the time or my day is ruined. It has happened on multiple occasions, and I have to wait until the next day to charge it again if I forget my charger, usually on trips such as the last time I went out of town. I stayed in Santa Barbara and realized I’d left my watch charger back in Palm Springs. They didn’t use to be this way. I never used to worry about charging my watch. The batteries would last much longer than a day, which is how long this one lasts.

Non-fiction

My Smartphone

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Do people even use smartphones for their intended purposes, or are these things just toys that we play with to call other people at rare times? We text another person, whether it’s a friend, a relative, or a family friend, rather than call them and listen to their voices. I, who is guilty of the same epidemic, prefer to text people. This newest form of communication I prefer over having to call someone and hear them babble for minutes, potentially even hours, or worse, to hear myself babble. I remember the days before cell phones and never thought we would reach this point. Those were times when I would have to be home for a friend or a parent to get a hold of me.

Otherwise, I would need to use a payphone, which was always a bummer. They were dirty, sometimes with gum on the receiver and always with graffiti etched on the phones themselves and on the windows at a phone booth. You used to have to wait for someone else before you got to use it. Payphones ain’t around no more. When was the last time I saw one on the sidewalk? Way over ten years ago? There was something romantic about payphones. A lover in a thunderstorm missed his lover so much that he would call her with one, soaking wet, and plead to have her back.

“Please, I have nowhere to stay tonight.”

You don’t feel that same type of romance with a smartphone. Aside from it being broken, it’s too convenient. If you’re in a quarrel with your mate, all you have to do is pick up that thing that has mesmerized you for several hours in a day, and not even dial the number that you’ve remembered for so long. All you have to do is press the name of the person you’ve saved in your list of contacts. How is that passionate? The smartphone holds no passion. You would’ve known the phone number by heart if you cared enough about the person. I can barely remember my mom’s number without looking it up on my smartphone, which if I lost it, say if I dropped it in the sewer, which I’ve almost done on several occasions, there would be no payphone nearby to save me. I would be screwed, without even knowing what numbers to call let alone having a quarter.

The smartphone is a computer we can fit in our pockets. You can argue that a phone call is a last resort when using one. It holds almost infinite possibilities.

A typical text I send would be, “Are you there?”

Their reply would be, “Yup.”

That would be the end of the conversation. It saves so much time and energy over a windy phone call.

I still say bring back payphones because we might need them in the case of a disaster, such as a dying smartphone, which is one of our worst worries. We fall into panic mode when it happens and look for the nearest smartphone store to rescue us. When we get there, there’s a line that nearly goes outside the door, and we have to set an appointment for a few days later. Who can wait that long? Those are agonizing days.

I remember I spent a whole afternoon at an Apple store. The geek at the mall set my appointment using his iPad for about 1:30 p.m., but I never got to see him until about two hours later, so I had to hang out and wait in there until he was available. Something was wrong with the hardware. They had to replace it with a new smartphone, and it took another two hours for it to load all of my apps. It was a nightmare of a day. I wish a disaster such as that only on my worst enemies.

Technology blows my mind. We live in the age of gadgets. A male fantasy to become James Bond has surfaced a little because of it. The smartphone is a piece of gadgetry, and so are all the small components in a car these days.

You can now hook your smartphone up to the car and have them communicate with each other. Again, where’s the romance? There’s nothing romantic about a Tesla compared to a classic Mustang. Yes, the Tesla has a digital dashboard and the ability for Apple Carplay, but externally it looks like an egg on wheels, and internally it comforts you at the sake of visual aesthetics. Who can argue against the leather interior of a classic automobile or even the steering wheel compared to today’s cars? I’m falling off course, or am I? You can argue that today’s vehicle is just a larger smartphone. I connect my phone to the car and call someone just by pressing a button on the steering wheel. Who needs a drive-in theater when I can just watch a movie on the dashboard with my lover when the phone is integrated? Things just ain’t the same.