anonymous numbers

Yesterday a number I didn't recognize called my cell phone. They didn't leave a message, either. Lev and I looked at each other, groaned, and said, "Ohhhh no." I then googled the number (side note: this entry is chock full of words and word combinations that would have made no sense in 1997) and found out that it was the Gallup poll, and that I'd missed my opportunity to speak my mind because I am now afraid of numbers that I don't recognize.

Ok so when I had my first apartment way back in 1998 (right?), I had a land line. With, heaven forbid, no caller ID! In fact, I didn't even KNOW about caller ID until a circa-2002 potential (at the time) boyfriend casually mentioned it in conversation--that he'd called me but he hadn't left a message because, you know, caller ID. I was like, whaaaat? and that may have been the beginning of the I-don't-leave-messages-because-you-saw-I-called era that we live in today. Soon after that conversation, I was paying too much to Qwest for a box that attached to my telephone and blinked when there were new numbers to look at. I never looked back.

In 2004 I decided to dip my toe into the cell phone game. Soon enough, I ditched the cumbersome land line and was footloose and fancy-free on my t-mobile flip phone.

So what does it mean that we are taking the guesswork out of answering the phone? It may mean that Gallup can't possibly get accurate results, due to the fact that people with caller ID do not answer phone calls where they don't recognize the number. It may also mean that we are becoming a smaller, more insular society. I have the numbers in my cell phone that I already know and I answer based on whether or not I want to/can talk at the moment. And I never answer the phone and talk to a stranger.

On the other hand, I read an article somewhere that talked about how, at the advent of the telephone, it was considered a rude machine. Anybody could invade your house at any time. They didn't have to "come calling" (an older meaning of "call" was to visit in person) and face the awkwardness of knocking on your door and then further risk seeing your red-with-annoyance face because it was the dinner hour. There were and still are certain rules that pertain to making a house call that just didn't carry over to making a telephone call.

So, in that sense, I guess caller ID sort of enforces manners that were dropped at the advent of the telephone--the caller no longer controls the exchange, the receiver who is looking at the screen of their cell phone does. This still doesn't make up for the fact that I missed my opportunity to be polled by Gallup, though.