1980

“You’ll need to hang up. I have to call the vet.” Dad interrupts our next door neighbour’s phone conversation, often social and always lengthy.  It is the only way to get the party line when he needs to get help with an ailing cow and he is definitely not above breaking into the call. He’s running a business and in our 1980s house, the phone is the lifeline to everything. 

We use the phone to call friends and family too, but it’s primarily a tool, not for entertainment. Overseas calls to England to speak to relatives are annual, at most. And not pre-booked. My parents take their chances when they call their parent on a birthday, several thousand kilometres away. They think about when the best time might be to reach someone, maybe early in the morning or later in the evening. If no-one answers, they call later. Or the next day. It’s a fun game. If anyone’s home, they will answer. Just as we do if that familiar and coveted double-ring happens, heralding a call from someone who wants to speak to one of the three, four, or up to seven people who live in this house. We run for the black dial phone in the centre of the main floor. If it’s a call for someone who isn’t home, we take a message and remember to pass it along. But first, we catch up with the person who called.  There are no secrets - if a prospective date calls, they know the risk is they will have to speak with our father. Extramarital affairs are clearly much more complicated although as a teenager, I’ve never thought about it. 

1986

“Hello. Please leave a message at the beep,” drones the monotonous electronic voice of my pre-recorded answering machine. Called Griselda, I’ve inherited her from my oldest sister who has moved on to a fancier machine where she can record her own voice. (Imagine that!) Gris is good for me right now in my university residence room. I can control who I talk to and when. Sometimes I take a risk and don’t screen but mostly I sit beside the phone and pounce to answer if it’s a call I want to take. Every time I return to my residence room, I run to the phone to look for that friendly flashing red light. 

1988

“Oh yeah, Oh yeah, the moon is beautiful, so beautiful…". Griselda’s been replaced by a very modern tape recorder. For the opening of my outgoing message, I capture music on the radio or from a cassette, like this rhythmic ditty from Yello, a 1980s electronic duo from Switzerland. My clothes are black, my answering machine has cool ever-changing music, and the only way you can reach me is by phone - those are the constants in my life. 

1989

“Christine, send me a message!” I call out to my grad school friend across the computer lab. We’re working on SPSSx, a statistics program we use to analyse survey research data. We write a formula, then wait while the enormous mainframe in the room next-door does its machinations and spews out a printout. If there’s a problem in our code, we get garbage and have to rewrite the program. While we wait, we goof around with this little thing called electronic mail that allows us to type things to each other and read it on each other’s computer terminals. We don’t actually use it to communicate - we talk in person and on the phone. But it’s a fun way to pass time. 

1993

“This is going to change the way we communicate,” Peter, our IT Manager, tells me as he shows me how to send a message using Groupwise.  Email is replacing the reusable manila envelopes with their string and button closures that move letters around City Hall. We print each message as it arrives and place it in our outbox for filing. If we really want to communicate with a colleague, we pick up the phone or walk down the hall. A lot of real work gets done in the coffee shop in the PATH below the Sheraton, over a lunchtime glass of wine or martini at Barberians Steakhouse, or in the smoking area outside the Glass House in the underground parking lot. 

2002

“But you have to take a cell phone,” they all told me as I packed for this six day road trip across the country to start law school. I laugh about it now as I drive along listening to Kinsey Millhone solving her case in Sue Grafton’s latest novel in my car’s CD player. The cell phone I’ve borrowed is in a Tupperware container on the floor of my car buried under a mountain of clothes, books, and household items. I will ship it back to Ontario when I arrive. I don’t need a cell phone. If something goes wrong - which it won’t - I will flag down a trucker or find a payphone along the highway. A first priority when I get to Victoria is getting a phone in my apartment. Talking to friends and family back home will keep me sane. Email too. But phone is the most important connection. I haven’t brought my answering machine. I’ll get voicemail this time. 

2010

“What’s your cell number?” asks Jack, my new boyfriend, who walks around with a blue flashing light in his ear, ready to engage the phone line at any time. My cell phone, a Nokia so old it was rejected by my friend’s teenaged son, is “smart” in no sense of the word. Texting “hi” is a torturous exercise: tap the number 4 twice; tap the number 4 three times. Jack forces a trip to Future Shop to upgrade to a phone with a keyboard. It’s a slippery slope: he’ll soon have me Blackberrying with him, Obama, and everyone else.  

2022

“How did you send that link? I’ve checked my Twitter and LinkedIn DMs and I don’t see it.” 

“I can’t find you on WhatsApp.” 

“I saw you called. I didn’t listen to your voicemail.” 

Ping! “Want to have a phone call in an hour? Or you prefer Zoom? Or FaceTime?”

“You gotta see the joke I just sent to the group-chat in Messenger.”

“Which phone did you text - work or personal?”

“Did you get my email? I sent it just a minute ago.”

“Just e-transfer me the funds.”

“Do you have their v-card?”

“You can use your personal hotspot.”

“I’ll just airdrop it.”

“just download the Teams app.”

“put it on Slack.” 

Argh! I hate it. Not sure what Drake was talking about but I lament not just the days of calling me on my cellphone. I lament the days of spontaneous phones generally. Of having a single platform for communication.  Of platforms being physical structures. 

* This is the opening line to “Hotline Bling,” a 2015 worldwide hit for Canadian rapper, Drake.