I despise all telephones RANT

So many times I'm working in Geneva and the phone rings. It can be a friend of my housemate, No.1 or No 2 son (hers not mine) a friend of mine, my own daughter and more likely it is a sales call with a strange accent telling me Microsoft needs account information. I want to rip the phone out of the wall, but won't because it belongs to my housemate. I mumble curses on my way back to whatever I was doing when the phone rang.

Sometimes the calls come when I'm about to get the best score ever in a computer game. Sometimes I've been having the words for whatever I'm writing fly out of my fingers.

If the phone is in my nest, I feel the same rip-out urges. These times I resist because I'm cheap and don't want to buy a new phone. I use the phone to call out if I'm sick and need help, tell someone I'll be late, etc. I certainly do not want to chat with anyone.  I really appreciate the friends who ask me when is the best time to call if we must talk on the telephone...then it is NOT an interruption. That is a pre-arranged date for sharing.

I am always polite to those I like and those I don't like...although on the sales calls I've been thinking of screaming at the top of my lungs talking historically about some horrible crime such, "oh, my god, blood is everywhere" or say things, "Hold on, the police are here and they want to talk to you." I do realise that the poor callers, even those that make the most annoying sales call need to earn a living.

I have a dumb phone that I refuse to give the number out unless absolutely necessary. I turn it on maybe five minutes before I'm due to meet someone or if I'm late or lost. I might use it to tell someone I'm arriving at such and such time because the train is late. A couple of times I've used to call home and ask if they need anything from downtown, assuming I remembered to take the phone with me which isn't too often.

Most of the time I'm not even sure I know where the phone is.

The most use I get out of my dumb phone is the alarm clock.

Rick lovingly bought me a smart phone that does not work well. He did not chose a phone that does not work well on purpose and he assures me it is the settings. However even if it worked perfectly when I'm out of the house I do not want to:
1. play games on the phone
2. look at apps
3. talk to people using an instrument...I'll talk face to face
4. look at the internet
5. check my email
6. have people contact me
7. Get Smses unless absolutely necessary
8. Send Smsese unless absolutely necessary

As for that number of the new phone I don't know it and I don't want to know it.

Even if someone has died and I'm out and about, it can wait until I get home. Having someone telephone me at Mikado restaurant as I scoff down sushi will not bring them back to life. If they are on death's door, I don't have any medical training to help them anyway.  And death or impending death is about the only emergency that might, just might need an immediate action on my part.

Maybe if I had kids, it might be slightly different if they missed a bus late at night or were at school and sick and needed a pick up. An adult daughter is not in that situation.

I've tried to be open about the smartphone because Rick has tried some things for me that were hard for him and I so appreciate that that I feel I owe him a reciprocal action.

Now saying that, I will happily talk on Skype for hours,  do everything the smart phone does but on my home computer. In fact I can be on the computer anywhere from 6-10 hours a day. I get between 50 and 150 emails each day of which about 50% need my attention or some action on my part.

Outside is my escape from contact with the connected world. I only want to deal with real humans face to face.

More and more phones may be used for other stuff such as banking, buying stuff out of a machine, paying for a bus or train ticket...when that comes about and there's no other alternative but a smart phone I'll rethink the whole thing.

I suggested Rick do what he can to get out of the contract. It's a waste of money. Yet I love him for trying.