November 01, 2011

Or perhaps an owl

I had a busy day — a breakfast meeting, an appointment with a student, three 80-minute classes in a row, and then another meeting. I never even had time to turn on the computer in my office and check my email. It was getting dark by the time I got home, changed into sweatpants, built a fire, and made myself a cup of tea.

When I finally grabbed my laptop and checked my inbox, I saw an email from this morning, a friend asking if I wanted to go to lunch tomorrow. I started to reply to the email, but then I stopped halfway through writing the message when I realized that the address was her work email. I knew she was already home from work, and I wasn’t sure if she would check her work email from home. But I needed to plan my day for tomorrow.

I went over to her facebook page: it looked like she’d been online earlier. I found her on my cellphone with the plan to send her a text. I squinted at the first three digits of her phone number and realized that it was a local number, which meant a landline. I checked twitter, and thought about sending a direct message, but I wasn’t sure how often she checks twitter. I checked google chat, but she wasn’t online.

Then I had a brilliant idea. I picked up the telephone and dialed her number. Suddenly, I heard her voice and we were talking directly! It took us less a minute to make lunch plans.

And I didn’t have to type anything.

7 comments:

Magpie said...

OMG! A telephone? I know, I have the same thing happen sometimes.

Lilian said...

Ha... that's so funny! Why oh why do we have to make everything so much more complicated, right?! Lately I've enjoyed texting more than calling, though... it's so convenient and unobtrusive. (and nearly silent). Sigh. It's a brave new world...

rented life said...

As someone who spent over an hour and a half on the telephone with family last night, I love this!

YourFireAnt said...

See? and you would've saved your eyes a little bit.

;-)

YourFireAnt said...

Next time write me a letter. ;-D

patrick said...

I want to comment but I don't have your number.

BrightenedBoy said...

Quite insightful.

I've thought often that much of the technology designed to improve communication actually makes it more difficult.

This post captured the silly zeitgeist of the Twitter age. When you picked up the phone and just dialed the number I practically sighed with relief.