wmartin@st-louis-emh2.army.mil (Will Martin) (06/01/89)
Though you might like to see this, which came over the "dave-barry"
mailing list:
[05/06/89]
An Invention That Really Clicked
by Dave Barry
Today I want to *click.* Excuse me. OK. Today I want to talk about *click.*
Excuse me again. OK, where were we? Oh, yeah, I was saying that *click.*
Never mind, just ignore it. I was saying that I want to *click* about this
major stride forward in *click*phone technology called "call waiting," which is
such a big *click*ing *convenience* that I'd like to find the *click* who
invented it and ...
No, wait, let me just calm down here. Some readers may not even know what I'm
talking about. Some readers are probably living in backward, soybean-infested
regions that don't even have the incredible convenience of "call waiting." So
let me explain how it works: If you're on the phone with Party A, and Party B
tries to call you, both you and Party A will hear an interruption noise, which
alerts you to press your disconnect button so you can talk to Party B, who
trust me has absolutely nothing important to tell you, so you say you'll call
back and resume talking with Party A for 10 full seconds, until you hear
another interruption noise indicating that you have a vitally unimportant call
from Party C, and so on down the alphabet until Party A decides to drive over
to your house and strangle you with your phone cord.
Doesn't this sound terrific, soybean people? Doesn't it sound *modern?* To
give you a clear picture of what you're missing, let me compare "call waiting"
to an everyday domestic situation. Let's say I'm having dinner with my wife
and 8-year-old son, and my wife and I are discussing the kind of important
issue that normal, mature married adults discuss at dinner:
ME: It does *what* when you flush it?
MY WIFE: It makes kind of a banging sound.
ME: A *banging* sound?
MY WIFE: Yes. And there are these little like electric sparks coming...
OUR SON (interrupting): How come...
MY WIFE: Robert, please don't interrupt.
ME: Sparks?
MY WIFE: Yes, and they're...
OUR SON (interrupting): But I was just gonna ask you...
MY WIFE: Wait, Robert!
ME: There are *sparks?*
MY WIFE: Yes, they're coming from...
OUR SON: But this is *important!*
MY WIFE: *ALL right,* Robert. What *is* it?
OUR SON: How come my left arm tastes saltier than my right arm?
"Call waiting" is very similar to this. It's kind of like an electronic
8-year-old who is simply incapable of shutting up while you are conversing with
somebody else. The differences are that (1) an 8-year-old does not have the
gall to charge you a monthly fee for this service; and (2) an 8-year-old can
interrupt you only if he's in the same room, whereas with the incredible
capabilities of "call waiting," your conversations can be interrupted by
*everybody in the entire world who has access to a telephone.* It doesn't even
have to be a person. A computer can interrupt you. In fact, through a
combination of "call waiting" and "auto-dialing," it is now technically
possible for your telephone conversations to be interrupted by a *trained
chicken.*
And whom do we have to thank for this amazing communications breakthrough? My
guess is that it came from the prestigious Institute of Irritating Technology,
whose hard-working staff of former Nazi medical researchers also developed: the
beeper; the non-openable fast-food ketchup packet that contains a total of four
ketchup molecules; the machine that inserts those hateful little cards that are
forever falling out of magazines; and the empty self-service elevator that for
no apparent reason closes its doors just as you get to it, then emits a clearly
audible computerized chuckle.
But I think the boys at the institute really outdid themselves with "call
waiting," although I should point out that we don't have it in our own
household. We feel that we can obtain the same benefits, without the monthly
service charge, by simply whacking ourselves with hammers. But it seems as
though almost everybody we know has this powerful feature, the result being
that we have learned to speak in very short sentences, which we squeeze between
the clicks ("What's new?" *click* "Mom's dead." *click* "Too bad!" *click*).
It's just so darned convenient that I can hardly wait to see what exciting new
services the telephone people will come up with next. Maybe they'll offer
"Call Fabricating," wherein your phone becomes bored and rings for no reason;
or "Call Misrepresenting," wherein your callers' voices are electronically
altered so that you hear the *opposite* of what they actually said ("Mom's
Dead." *click* "Great!" *click*).
But what I, personally, would like to see -- call me a dreamer -- would be some
kind of service wherein if you were talking to somebody, and a third person
tried to call either of you, *your call would not be interrupted.* Instead, the
third person would hear a special tone -- we could call it a "busy signal" --
telling him that a conversation was already in progress, so he'd have to try
again later. But I doubt we'll ever see this come about. The concept is far
too complex to be grasped by a certain type of telecommunications consumer. I
am thinking primarily of the chicken.
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