Hello, Hello.

“Your phone’s ringing.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Aren’t you going to answer it?”
“Well, no. I wasn’t.”
“Why not?”
“I’m busy doing something.”
“It might be important.”
“So is what I’m doing and if it is, they’ll call back. Then, if I’m not busy, I’ll answer it.”
“You’re weird.”
Personally I prefer the term eccentric.
It is, of course, entirely due to my inability to perform that function which is a sine qua non of modern society, to multi-task. You know, doing several things indifferently at the same time as opposed to concentrating on one and making a decent job of it.
No wonder the financial markets get themselves in such a mess. Just look at those traders with a phone in each ear – but I suppose it’s the reason they earn those huge bonuses. Surely they must get it wrong sometimes when their left ear doesn’t know what their right ear is telling them.
Telephones are an intrusion of privacy as far as I’m concerned although here, as so often, I am clearly out of step with society. As witness the proliferation of mobiles and the inconsequential chatter that results.
And as for answering at mealtimes, forget it.
I last received a call on mine in May – and then it was a wrong number so I feel many of my friends have got the message.
Nearly always, at the end of a business call, I wind up saying “Let me have that in writing” so they might just as well have spent the money on a stamp in the first place.
All in all, I feel that when Alexander Graham Bell said, “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you,” if Watson had ignored him and got on with whatever it was he was doing, I’d be a lot happier.
I suppose he could always have sent him a text message though.