Word: calling
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...rationales against phones is that in our enclosed universe one is always near an accessible telephone; from someone's room to a Centrex or a friendly pay phone, it isn't hard to place a call. But for pay phones you need to find 35 cents or remember your calling card number. Always a pain. And Centrexes have the whole privacy issue. Someone calls up and you hear the customary static and background noise. "How are you?" And then you can broadcast your personal business over a rather wide radius. Not so fun. And you can only call Harvard people...
...coordinate complicated evening plans when lots of people are out on the town? "Look, I'll leave a message on your machine after dinner, and you leave on one mine saying where you guys went, and wait for me until 12, but if we miss each other I'll call Julie, and change her incoming message for me or I'll check my e-mail too, if I can." But somebody forgets a crucial step and plans change and there you are. All alone. What if a few more people had cell phones? The whole thing would be effortless...
...course, the assumption is that these new toys, even if terribly useful for coordinating social lives and being accessible, are very expensive. But cell phones are practically competitive with the less-than-excellent Harvard phone plan. With Sprint PCS, you can get 700 minutes of calling time a month within a local calling area for $35 a month, and for $50 a month you can get 500 minutes free nationwide. So for the same amount I pay the Harvard Telephone Office, or even less, I can have a spiffy little toy, and Mom can reach me all the time...
There is, of course, the fear that no one will call once I become incredibly accessible. Now I can spend the whole day assuming my machine is bursting with messages and I don't have to be crushed until I arrive home. But if my little phone were lying limp and dead in my pocket, not vibrating, I would have constant reminders of being unloved. To quote the ever-wise Shaw, "The more and more accessible you become, the more you realize that no one is trying to get in touch with...
...Rice's The Vampire Armand before I had to push the book away as you might do to a meal you've started and are too full to finish. Several times I sat back in my chair with a full stomach and sighed gustily, and yet I wouldn't call the feeling one of satisfaction. It was, in fact, reminiscent of eating an entire chocolate cake, followed not by an expected satiety but rather by a too-sweet nausea. The Vampire Armand is such a dessert, so rich that one bite is an indulgence...