<!-- In which Jean rants about the telephone -->

<rant>

I wish I never had to answer my phone.

Unfortunately, it's part of my job, so I have to answer it at work; but I hardly ever answer it at home. I carry a cell phone, but I don't leave it turned on. When people ask for my cell phone number, I tell them I have no idea. They look at me strangely, and then I tell them that the cell phone is for emergencies -- mine, not theirs. If my car breaks down and I need to call AAA, that's an emergency worth using my phone for. If they need to call me when I'm out to lunch because they can't find a file, tough. They can wait till I get back to the office.

I hate the phone. Sure, it was a great invention back in the day, when there was such a thing as phone etiquette and communication didn't run our lives, but now the phone is just intrusive, annoying, and not really necessary. I feel intruded upon when I get a phone call just as I'm settling down to watch a brand new episode of Buffy, and I feel like an intruder when I call someone, because most likely they're doing something that they would prefer not to have to stop doing in order to answer their phone. This is why I never call people. People tell me to call them. I tell them I probably won't, and ask for their e-mail address instead. It doesn't mean I don't want to talk to them. It just means I'm neurotic about the phone. In a perfect world I would never use the phone. I wouldn't even own one. All of my communication would be done either in person or through electronic means. I would never have to hear that nerve grating ring, or buzz, or chirp, or whatever, I would never have to feel guilty about not returning phone calls, and I would never have to feel that sick feeling of dread that I always get just before I answer the phone. I could know for a fact that Ed McMahon is calling me to give me ten million dollars, or that Vin Diesel is calling to ask me to marry him, and I would still get that feeling.

I just hate the phone, is all.

</rant>