Hello?
Back in the day, calling someone on the phone meant walking to the wall, picking up the phone, and standing beside that wall while talking on the phone. If you needed to use the restroom, drive a car, or reach your cigarettes on the other side of the room, you needed to put down the phone and walk away, often hanging up before doing so (particularly when driving).
When the call was long distance – say, to Bonnie in Ohio or Debbie in Virginia – that added a cost to the bill at the end of the month. Long distance bills could be very, very high.
So I didn’t talk to Bonnie or Debbie very often. We wrote letters to each other, and waited by the mailbox for a response, which came immediately in Debbie’s case, and almost never came in Bonnie’s case.
When I did talk on the phone, then, my conversations felt especially important. But in our new apartment, we spent most of our time listening to other people’s conversations.
This made it very challenging to have a conversation of my own.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s me,” I would start.
“And then Jerry found a carrot in his soup and as you know Jerry hates carrots and …” Then there would be static.
“Hello?”
“Still me,” I’d say.
“What about the car? Didn’t he just get it fixed?”
“What?”
“I don’t know what’s happening, sorry. Something’s wrong with our phone we think.”
Some kid would ramble: “Every day I get butter sandwiches in my lunch. I HATE butter sandwiches!”
“Did you hear that?”
“Of course I heard that. What is it?”
“I have no idea.”
The voices would suddenly notice us. “Who is that talking? Did you hear something?”
“It sounds like someone else is on our line! Get off our line you asshole!”
“I’m not on your line! I’m on my own phone!”
“What did they say?”
“I have no idea.”
“This is fucking insane!”
“If I ever buy carrots again, I’m hiding them in the back drawer!”
“Are you still there, Kirsten?”
“I’m here!”
“Kirsten? What were you saying about carrots?”
“I wasn’t talking about carrots!”
“He didn’t just get the car fixed. He never got it fixed the first time so this time….”
My conversation would end before it ever began.
It took me awhile to realize that the people talking on “our” phone line were living in the apartment building next door.
Pitcairn isn’t known for its glamour but the apartment building next door was an eyesore. It was a pasted-up, falling-down, three-story building with about 12 apartments. I called it the Pitcairn slum.
Our house didn’t have windows facing in that direction, but we started to recognize that the voices from outside were eerily similar to the voices we were hearing on our phone. If we opened our kitchen window and listened really carefully, the phone conversation echoed.
There was no way to remedy the situation.
Eventually it became fun to see who could hear us talking, and who could respond. We’d try to hold conversations with the people next door.
“Hey! Tell me more about the carrots!” I would yell.
The other person would get very quiet. “Did you hear that?”
I’d giggle, waiting. Phones were fun.
Only a few years later, the building next door was completely demolished leaving only dirt and grass.
I bet that made phone conversations easier.