You Can't Slam A Digital Phone

Unwanted phone calls started about the time Alexander Graham Bell invented the phone. Graham’s first call was, “Come here I want to see you”. This was followed by, “Do you want to buy a timeshare?” Today, when the phone rings you immediately check the area code before wasting your precious time. If you pick it up and acknowledge the communication, you expect some high-ticket information. This could be personal or business. If it is someone poaching your parade, you simply click and make it go away. 

In a recent discussion with a 29-year-old, we were talking about how it was. I’m old enough to remember the world before everyone was digitally addicted and dependent on a signal to be happy. Before everyone had a cellphone, hard wire landlines connected society. It is kind of hard to describe the quality of the call. It was warmer, you could feel it. 

Landlines use analogue technology converting audio signals through copper wires. Digital technology breaks audio signals into binary code. They are transmitted over the internet, and fiber optic cables on a wireless network. It is a series of Os and 1s. Digital signals are more efficient and offer features that are not available like caller ID, or call waiting. But digital technology lacks one major ingredient, “The Slam Factor”. 

You could tell a lot about a conversation by the way you hung up. After a light chit-chat with a friend, the phone would gracefully tap the button. If you didn't care, a dangle and a drop would be sufficient. A typical business click was firm, but only after you waited to hear them hang up first. There was an unwritten etiquette.

Then there is “The Slam.” This is where you can show your rage in a way that physically affects the person on the other line. I used to be a bad check collector. I had to call people at dinner time and ask them to cover their bounced check. You can imagine the responses, it usually starts as a rumble and then builds to a crescendo. “HOW CAN YOU CALL ME DURING MY RUMP ROAST DINNER, Blah, blah, blah. There is a 2-second delay, then “BLAM!” The bottom line was, "See ya, and I mean it!"

Here is the description in extremely dramatic detail. Picture a crescendo with giant cymbals at the very end.

"The Slam"

As the hand slowly withdraws back in anticipation. A silence envelops the scene as the timed delay before the crash is calculated. The reverberations of the collision linger like the aftertaste of a poignant memory. The telephone now stands with a renewed sense of purpose, having been awakened from its slumber by the hand's forceful interaction. In its clang and vibration, it embodies an era gone by, while the hand embodies the curiosity and fascination of the present—a juxtaposition of the past and the now, captured in a single moment of impact. 

The telephone itself vibrates in response to the impact, the kinetic energy pulsating through its core. The rotary dial, the heart of its operation, shivers slightly as if echoing the impact through its circular motion. The vintage bell inside, engineered for communication, now creates a different type of connection—between the past and the present, between a hand and a technological relic.

That is what it feels like to slam a phone. Alas, landlines are as hard to find as blonde roots, big foot, and unicorns. The digital world has changed how you express anger. People don’t want to converse on a phone anymore, rage has been re-invented. 

My salute to the slam.