Most of your general public is afraid of sharks, homicidal maniacs chasing you down a dark alleyway, and tofu. I’m afraid of the phone.
I don’t know when I developed this particular phone phobia, but the more I research it, the more it becomes clear that fear of the phone is ONLY a dread developed by men. It probably has something to do with the fact that we men do not have the ability to talk for several decades in a row, without taking a breath, and while saying absolutely nothing.
A group of men, on the other hand, can sit around for an entire football season, and other than the occasional grunt or release of gas, they say nothing to each other. And no one is mad; it’s just that we men are not big conversationalists. BUT women can talk until their tongues yell “uncle.”
So it stands to reason that women love the telephone. And a woman can stay on a phone until it becomes a permanent part of their facial anatomy, and can only be removed with the help of very strong acid-based chemicals, which if accidently spilled on a granite counter will dissolve right through it leaving behind a smoking hole.
Men hate the phone, and therefore will always make comments to our wives about someone calling someone to do something but without committing to actually dialing the phone ourselves.
EXAMPLE
“You know, we really should call the Dish Network Guy to come over here and fix the dish doohickey. I’m sick of lines going across my television.”
“We? You mean ‘me’ don’t you? Because God forbid you pick up the phone and call someone to do something sometime.”
“No, I said ‘we’ not ‘you.’ Did you hear me say ‘you’ or did you hear me say ‘we?’ I personally do not care who calls, as long as someone calls.”
“Oh, really? You have absolutely no intention of dialing that phone, do you?”
“None whatsoever.”
Being fed up with your fussing, your wife dials the Dish Network Guy with you taking up your usual sniveling cowardly spot in the background. And though men are NOT brave enough to talk on the phone, men are fearless at telling their wives, who are currently on the phone, what to say to whomever it is they are talking to on the other end of the phone, especially if the phone conversation is confrontational like, for instance, if the Dish Network Guy is telling your wife that “he cannot possibly make it there until maybe on a Tuesday, maybe in the year 2137, maybe around noonish, maybe.”
And so while your wife is trying to reason with him, we men are strutting around the kitchen widely beating our chests and inundating our wives with specific down-to-the-detail directions for what they need to say to the Dish Network Guy to get him to come over now and fix the damn television set!
EXAMPLE
“You tell him to get over here now!” (Thump chest) “We pay our monthly bills!” (Thump chest) “We pay his salary!” (Thump chest) “And I want him here now, and I mean right this (nasty word) minute!” (Thump chest).
So there is your poor wife with the phone smooshed against one ear, her hand covering her other ear, glaring at you, shushing you, and trying desperately to hear what the Dish Network Guy is saying. But she can’t hear a blessed thing the Dish Network Guy is saying, because some lunatic in the background is violently thumping and screaming hate-filled threats because the big baby “is sick and tired of having lines running across his precious television!”
And that is when it happens: she covers the mouthpiece, says those dreaded word, “Oh, Yeah! Well if you think you can do any better convincing him to come over now, YOU TALK TO HIM!” Then she removes her hand from the mouthpiece, hands the phone to you, steps back, puts her hands on her hips, raises one eyebrow, and taps the floor with her toe. And as much as you cover the mouthpiece and plead and plead and plead, she will not take the phone back from you, and you are forced to talk to him.
EXAMPLE
“Er, ah, listen, I really need my television fixed. Oh, you understand? You hate when lines show up on your screen, too? Great, so, when can you come over and fix it? You’re checking your schedule?” (This is when you cover up the mouthpiece and stick your tongue out at your wife because you are getting results, baby). “Oh, a, Monday, 2137, at noon. Okay, see you then. Bye” (Click)
It is at this exact point when your wife rolls her eyes at you. And you respond with: “Hey, at least I got the guy to commit to a definite day, year, and time.”
“Whatever.”
Oh, for the record, if a man and a woman are in a vehicle, and if the man is driving, and if they decide to drive through the drive-thru of a fast food restaurant, a man will NOT place their orders by speaking calmly into the intercom thingamajig, rather, he will force his wife to lean across him and place their orders by YELLING at the top of her lungs into the intercom thingamajig, because men are also afraid of drive-thru intercom thingamajigs.
