ah, those wonderful memories

of that wall mounted phone

usually yellow in most houses

began with a 3-foot cord

eventually a 30-foot cord

so important

for one’s privacy

if the phone rang

and the call was for one of us

we’d travel with that cord

way beyond any expected limits

into a corner or another room

with closed door

where we could

listen, gossip, tell jokes, share news, talk about nothing, cry about breakups, listen to music together, compare who got invited to what, predict who was going to ask who out, muse about crushes, complain about our parents and sibs, find out what the homework was because we weren’t listening in class, discuss what you were going to wear tomorrow, make plans…

and then

after what seemed to be about 5-7 minutes

one of your sibs

would start whining, complaining, knocking on the door, telling on you

for being on the phone ‘for hours’

 they were waiting for an important call

or had to make an important call

and they were just going to die

if they didn’t get to use the phone right away

the battle for the phone began

 if someone had to walk

through the room that cord was stretched across

 a taut tightrope about to snap

they had to lift it and walk under

like playing phone limbo

 the curly cord

would get all twisted up

because you had been twirling it around your finger

while you were on your call

you had to wait as the whole thing unspooled

sometimes standing on a chair to do so

when you finally got off of the call

your sibling began the whole process all over again

with her friend

until

another sibling jumped into the ring

to go through the whole ritual again

with her friend

until

your parents

or the friend’s parents

put the hammer down

and said

they were waiting for or had to make an important call

it was time for dinner

 not to stretch out the phone cord

one sib even figured out how to disconnect the cord

right where it connected to the phone

it was an ongoing struggle

for privacy,  phone access, and control

 it was the best, like being in a phone derby

and sometimes i won.

‘the shared phone was a space of spontaneous connection for the entire household.’

 — Julia Cho; The Atlantic—How the Loss of the Landline Is Changing Family Life