When cell phones first came into popularity, a new term was coined \u2013the Butt-call<\/i>. You\u2019d shove the phone in your pocket, sit down, and it would call someone on your contact list. That was back in the days when the phones were mechanical; you had to physically move a button to get it to perform a task. Butt calls are rarer now, partially due to smart phones replacing dumb phones, but mostly due to the fact that people seldom put their phone down. They are tied to it more firmly than they were once tied to their umbilical chord.<\/p>\n
Even so, some of us still make a proverbial butt call<\/i>, but a more accurate term for this, when an old coot like me does it, is a finger-slip<\/i> call. Old guys do this a lot. We\u2019re working with a double handicap; we\u2019re touch-screen challenged and we\u2019re not hip to many of the capabilities of our smart phones. We\u2019ll be editing our contact list or scrolling through a menu and our finger slips. Then someone\u2019s phone starts to ring.<\/p>\n
It wouldn\u2019t be so bad if the receiver of the call didn\u2019t find out who called and hung up, but that\u2019s not the case. Our society\u2019s phone-o-phobia<\/i> makes people uneasy when they notice a missed call<\/i>. And, with the caller\u2019s number right there in front of them, tempting them to check it out, the phone phobics do just that. \u201cYou called?” One will ask. \u201cWhat did you want?\u201d We give the Butt-call<\/i> excuse, not willing to admit to our ineptness.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s okay with some of the people we butt call, but not the people who are monitoring our descent into old age. It sets off an alarm for them. Wow! The Old Coot is really slipping. That\u2019s the third time this month he called me and hung up. I bet he forgot why he was calling and that\u2019s why he hung up<\/i>. It\u2019s like a giant report card, broadcasting our latest shortcoming via cell phone towers. It\u2019s bad enough to have people evaluate our slide into senility when they see us in person, but with our shaky fingers hovering above a cell phone, our deterioration goes viral.<\/p>\n
Even my doctor is in on the conspiracy. <\/i>The <\/i>last time I saw mine, he asked me to count backwards form one hundred by sevens. I got the first one right. – One hundred<\/i>! And, without using my fingers, the second one, ninety-three<\/i>. Then, like a knight riding in on a white horse to save a damsel in distress, my phone started to ring. It was a butt-call<\/i> from some other old coot, but I pretended it was a real call and told the doctor I had an emergency at home and had to leave. What a lie! But, I got away. And, a good thing too. I\u2019d never have come up with 95 or 96 or whatever the number seven down from 93 is. And, I knew he was also going to ask me to spell my full name backwards, skipping every other letter. I dodged a bullet that time.<\/p>\n
Which is a perfect example of why old coots tell lies, especially if we sense that someone is raising an eyebrow, doing a senility evaluation. So, if you get a missed call from me and call back for an explanation I\u2019ll tell you right now, you\u2019re gunna<\/i> get a lie, Oh sorry. My phone was on the counter and the cat was playing with it<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Comments (except about the improper use of \u201crarer\u201d in my first paragraph). Send to mlessler7@gmail.com.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When cell phones first came into popularity, a new term was coined \u2013the Butt-call. You\u2019d shove the phone in your pocket, sit down, and it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"\n