What’s that? You can’t resist picking up the phone every time it rings?
Of course I’d be happy to show you how to not do it. Of course…
“B-R-R-RIIING-BRIIING! B-R-R-RIIING-BRIIING!”
Okay, so even old-timey cell phones didn’t quite sound like that, but since what you’re hearing is a cell phone ringing back in 2001–and the yungens out there don’t know any better–we’ll pretend like that’s the sound they used to make. You know, “before ringtone scientists invented ringtones,” LOL.
So where was I? “B-R-R-RIIING-BRIIING! B-R-R-RIIING-BRIIING!” you say?
No, I know that’s where I was in the story, but I meant literally, “Where was I?”
Well, I’ll tell you where I literally was: as a freshly-dreadlocked Junior at K-State, I was beginning the school year by training for my part-time job as a physics teaching assistant. This was where some of the physics professors corralled the 20 or so of us aspiring physics maestro extraordinaires into a lab, and attempted to impress upon us how to properly impart physics facts unto apathetic undergrads.
In other words, I was busy, in a semi-public setting, getting paid to pay diligent attention to someone else.
So, of course I discreetly silenced my phone–never mind the facts that I had had it only for a mere week, and that I was too cheap to pay $4.99 + taxes and fees per month for Voice Mail–before it could it disrupt the classroom proceedings.
Of course…
“Kamsahamnida!1Translation: ‘Thank you’ in Korean.–Oh, sorry, I meant : ‘감 사 합 니 다!’ “
Many years before I knew I would marry into a Korean family, I found myself trying kimchi at the apartment of a couple of Korean K-State grad students. Later in his college career, my wise buddy Gfeller took on a side job as a resident assistant for the international student housing on campus, so he was friends with many a fella from a wide spectrum of nations. And ’twas he who had brought me as his guest to this intimate multi-cultural feast.
Let me tell you, I took my role as a curious colonizer seriously, learning about and partaking in such Korean customs as not wearing your shoes in the house, picking every last bit of meat off the kalbi bones, and of course, you gotta try the kimchi.
And in the middle of such convivial exchange of customs…
“B-R-R-RIIING-BRIIING! B-R-R-RIIING-BRIIING!” trumpeted the beast in the depths of my back pocket.
“Hark! Who is that calling my cellular telephonic device?” I thought to myself in a completely unnecessary Victorian-era accent.
In case it was urgent–another 9/11, perhaps?–I decided it was best to take a peek at the Caller ID. Ah, yes, Caller ID–a feature that I had finally caved in and dropped the outrageous amount of $2.99 + taxes and fees per month to have added to my plan a mere two months earlier.
Turns out it, it was my other wise and faithful–and coincidentally, half-Korean– buddy, ol’ Beechnuts, with whom I hadn’t chatted in a while.
But, of course, though new to Korean culture, I acknowledged and respected their deep-seated norm of never being so rude as to answer one’s phone while in the midst of socializing.
Of course…
“Yeah, so even though I know I was the one responsible for them, I gotta say I, um, kinda prefer your dreadlock-free look…”
A couple of years after that particularly dreadful affair, I found myself hanging out with that particular female friend who had waxed up my locks real good–and yes, I had semi-romantic intentions on my mind.
As I walked her across the cold campus to her dorm, I couldn’t help but thinking that she was hinting at something more. Was she calling me…handsome?
I batted my eyelashes at her coyly.
“Oh, do you really think–“
But before I could finish my thought, a blaring “B-R-R-RIIING-BRIIING! B-R-R-RIIING-BRIIING!” interrupted the moment.
Glancing at the Caller ID, I noted that it was my noble and beloved mother calling upon me.
Of course, though I loved my momma very much and enjoyed conversing with her, I silenced my phone and refocused my attention on the woman who would indubitably be my future wife…
Of course…
“Well, it looks like you have everything in order to refinance your new property. Any questions for me, your trusted local banker?”
Many, many moons later (and not so many moons ago), I was at the financial institution just down the road, assisting an older unnamed family member with some very important adult stuff, and we had almost wrapped everything up when…
“B-R-R-RIIING-BRIIING! B-R-R-RIIING-BRIIING!”
And of course you already know that that phone call was immediately silenced, and most definitely no one in that bank had to hear “Hello, Mother, what are you doing?” belch forth from anyone’s speaker phone and echo embarrassingly throughout the building.
Of course…
The point of the story is that I come from a long lineage of folk who know when not to answer their cell phones. And of course I wouldn’t be telling you these relatively boring-ass stories if they weren’t 100% completely true.
Of course…
And of course I gotta leave you with a quite-apt-but-semi-obscure cultural reference that speaks for us all when we hear that “B-R-R-RIIING-BRIIING! B-R-R-RIIING-BRIIING!”:
And, of course you already knew that was Electric Six‘s hit, “(Who The Hell Just) Call My Phone,” and you most certainly didn’t have to go listen to it over on YouTube.
Of course…
Content created on: 23/24/25 February 2023 (Thurs/Fri/Sat)
Footnotes & References:
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