Phone Booths
25/03/12 05:28
A couple of years ago, we were in England visiting our daughter and, while walking around London, came on one of those iconic English phone booths. We stopped and our daughter posed for a few pictures. Afterward, she told us that it was “disgusting” in there – in need of a thorough cleaning. She didn’t call any one. The idea of a phone booth was strange to her. The idea of a telephone that is hooked up with a wire seems old-fashioned and obsolete to her.
Who needs a phone booth when you have a cell phone in your pocket or purse? Apparently not very many people have such a need. You certainly don’t see pay phones around like you used to.
I remember when every public building had a pay phone. Many had full-blown phone booths with doors that close and a ventilator fan in the ceiling. I can remember a few of the old ones that were made out of wood before the more “modern” glass and metal ones that were more common later. In the back of the drug store in our hometown, there was a wooden phone booth with small windowpanes on the door. It had a leather seat and a shelf with a phone book and extra space for a notebook and a pencil.
I can also remember the rows of pay phones at O’Hare Airport in Chicago. We would walk by rows and rows of people talking on the phones as we headed down the concourse in the airport. In those days, you went out to the gate to meet an incoming party and you parked the car and walked your friend or family member to the gate and watched that person board the airplane.
I don’t mean to be overly nostalgic, and I know that such reminiscences are interesting to people my age and boring to those who are younger. But I think that we need the comeback of the phone booth. Obviously, we don’t need pay phones any more. They simply wouldn’t make enough money to cover their expenses. It seems like everyone has a cell phone these days.
It also seems like they are constantly talking on their phones. All too often they are talking on their phones in inappropriate places at inappropriate times. You’ve seen enough drivers talking on their phones and distracted by the conversations to know what I mean. But cell phone use in other places is just as irritating, if not quite as dangerous. People talk on their phones in the checkout lane in the grocery store as if we couldn’t overhear their conversations – or worse, as if we should be listening to what they are saying. I’ve had to wait while someone finished a conversation on the phone to pay the checker. And it isn’t just grocery stores. There are people talking on the phone in restaurants, in office buildings, and in the lobby of the theater. I guess I should be glad that it is the lobby. So far many theatres maintain a ban on the use of cell phones in the actual theater, thank goodness. I’ve had meetings and personal conversations interrupted by the devices. It seems that a phone call or a text takes precedence over actual face-to-face conversation for some people.
I understand the convenience of cell phones in the case of emergencies. But emergencies are relatively rare in real life. Reminding someone to pick up clothes left at the cleaners is hardly an emergency. Calling to check in to see where someone else is doesn’t seem like a real emergency.
So I think we need phone booths in public places. We don’t need the pay phones – we just need a place for people to go to have their private conversations in private. The rest of us don’t need to hear what they have to say. And the people talking on the phone need to learn that there is a time and a place for everything. So, if we can’t teach them the time, at least we might provide the place.
When we have been traveling recently, we have noticed that the phones in airports have been replaced by recharging stations. It seems that people have so many battery powered devices that they are almost constantly in need of recharging something and the waiting time in the airport is a good chance to make sure the batteries are charged for the next adventure. All it would take would be some little privacy walls with a little soundproofing and we could provide a place to isolate some of the conversations from the rest of the noise and hubbub of the airport.
Of course providing the place doesn’t insure that people would use it. And, as is true of all public places, it would require frequent and careful cleaning. Getting people to use the space wouldn’t guarantee that they would keep it clean. After all, I am advocating providing a place for people who aren’t particularly thoughtful in their behavior already.
Having made the suggestion, I am sure that it probably wouldn’t work. Just providing the space doesn’t mean that people would use it. It seems that one of the qualities that many people have and that I lack is the ability to carry on a conversation without caring who overhears what you are saying. Perhaps it is the ability to simply ignore the other people in your immediate area. I’m not sure. I seem to not have that ability. I find myself talking so quietly on the phone in some locations that the person on the other end has trouble hearing me. In some places, I can’t hear the person on the other end of the phone.
Here is where a phone booth would really work, in my opinion. If there were phone booths in every public building, perhaps from time to time people like me could duck into the booth for a moment of peace and quiet and separation from all of the people outside of the booth who are yammering on their cell phones.
I remember when every public building had a pay phone. Many had full-blown phone booths with doors that close and a ventilator fan in the ceiling. I can remember a few of the old ones that were made out of wood before the more “modern” glass and metal ones that were more common later. In the back of the drug store in our hometown, there was a wooden phone booth with small windowpanes on the door. It had a leather seat and a shelf with a phone book and extra space for a notebook and a pencil.
I can also remember the rows of pay phones at O’Hare Airport in Chicago. We would walk by rows and rows of people talking on the phones as we headed down the concourse in the airport. In those days, you went out to the gate to meet an incoming party and you parked the car and walked your friend or family member to the gate and watched that person board the airplane.
It also seems like they are constantly talking on their phones. All too often they are talking on their phones in inappropriate places at inappropriate times. You’ve seen enough drivers talking on their phones and distracted by the conversations to know what I mean. But cell phone use in other places is just as irritating, if not quite as dangerous. People talk on their phones in the checkout lane in the grocery store as if we couldn’t overhear their conversations – or worse, as if we should be listening to what they are saying. I’ve had to wait while someone finished a conversation on the phone to pay the checker. And it isn’t just grocery stores. There are people talking on the phone in restaurants, in office buildings, and in the lobby of the theater. I guess I should be glad that it is the lobby. So far many theatres maintain a ban on the use of cell phones in the actual theater, thank goodness. I’ve had meetings and personal conversations interrupted by the devices. It seems that a phone call or a text takes precedence over actual face-to-face conversation for some people.
I understand the convenience of cell phones in the case of emergencies. But emergencies are relatively rare in real life. Reminding someone to pick up clothes left at the cleaners is hardly an emergency. Calling to check in to see where someone else is doesn’t seem like a real emergency.
So I think we need phone booths in public places. We don’t need the pay phones – we just need a place for people to go to have their private conversations in private. The rest of us don’t need to hear what they have to say. And the people talking on the phone need to learn that there is a time and a place for everything. So, if we can’t teach them the time, at least we might provide the place.
Of course providing the place doesn’t insure that people would use it. And, as is true of all public places, it would require frequent and careful cleaning. Getting people to use the space wouldn’t guarantee that they would keep it clean. After all, I am advocating providing a place for people who aren’t particularly thoughtful in their behavior already.
Having made the suggestion, I am sure that it probably wouldn’t work. Just providing the space doesn’t mean that people would use it. It seems that one of the qualities that many people have and that I lack is the ability to carry on a conversation without caring who overhears what you are saying. Perhaps it is the ability to simply ignore the other people in your immediate area. I’m not sure. I seem to not have that ability. I find myself talking so quietly on the phone in some locations that the person on the other end has trouble hearing me. In some places, I can’t hear the person on the other end of the phone.
Here is where a phone booth would really work, in my opinion. If there were phone booths in every public building, perhaps from time to time people like me could duck into the booth for a moment of peace and quiet and separation from all of the people outside of the booth who are yammering on their cell phones.