95/365: 1976-1977

Friday, 29 August 2008.

 

40 Years in 40 Days [ view the entire set ]

An examination and remembrance of a life at 40.

 

For the 40 days leading up to my 40th birthday, I intend to use my 365 Days project to document and remember my life and lay bare what defines me. 40 years, 40 qualities, 40 days.

 

Year 9: 1976-1977

 

In the fourth grade, my best friend was also my worst enemy. Her name was Amber, and we both lived way out of town on the same bus route, so we ended up spending a lot of time together before and after school. We were sort of friends by default. We used to talk about how one day we would arrange to come to school with a few extra changes of clothes and, instead of going home at the end of the day, we'd run away. Of course, we never established just where we were running to, and when the day finally came when we were supposed to hit the road, Amber called me and said she didn't want to do it. Neither did I.

 

Amber called me a lot that year. It became a real problem, because we lived in an area with fairly limited phone service. Our phone was on a party line, which meant that all the houses in our area shared a single phone line. If one person was on the phone, no one else in the area could get or make a call. Even worse, if you picked up the phone while someone else was on it, you could hear their conversation. This was occasionally amusing, but more often, it resulted in angry neighbors breaking into my conversations with Amber, repeatedly asking us to get off the phone. Of course, as I was 8 years old and hadn't yet figured out that there was anyone else in the world that mattered, I was completely oblivious.

 

Amber and I were a volatile combination, and we fought viciously. By the end of the year, our teacher had instituted an unofficial restraining order, and we weren't allowed to come within 50 feet of each other. I remember kicking her ass at recess one day, but no one else seems to remember that, so I may have made that up out of sheer hatred and frustration.

 

Amber ended up being one of the popular girls in high school. I did not.

 

Who am I?

 

I am a person who hates talking on the phone.

 

I really do. My best friend through junior and senior high school was a phone nut, and would call me several times a day, whether she had anything to say or not. I'd sit there for an hour, sometimes listening to silence, sometimes listening to her eat her lunch or whatever. It drove me absolutely up the wall. I don't know if it was all that getting yelled at by the neighbors on the party line, or if I just didn't get the teenage girl phone obsession gene, but I just never understood the appeal. If I didn't have something to say, I had no interest in dialing the phone. I mean, what was the point? I could be doing something else, like reading, or drawing, or watching TV, or picking out navel lint... anything but talking (or, as the case may be, not talking) on the phone.

 

To this day, I just can't stand talking on the phone. I will do just about anything to avoid having to do it. It's not that I'm bad at it. I've actually been told I have an excellent phone voice, and when I've had to do phone work for jobs and such, I've been very good at it. But I hated every second. Hated, hated, hated it! I just won't make a phone call if I don't absolutely have to. This is at least part of the reason why I've also been very bad at keeping in touch with people. If my entire life could be conducted via e-mail, I'd be much happier.

 

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Done