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Hi. My Name Is Jenny, And I Am A Phonophobiac

April 3, 2007 By Jenny Ryan 8 Comments

Today I was reading one of my favorite bloggers, Mighty Maggie, and it just struck me that there are so many similarities between us, we could really almost be Twins Separated At Birth.

1. She is a creative person

2. Married to a techno-geek

3. Is DEEPLY passionate about the correct use of grammar and punctuation

4. Feels that their Roomba is their pet. (I strongly feel that our TIVO is the 6th member of our family, and will frequently give my husband updates on its behavior when he gets home from work, especially if I feel he needs to discipline it. As in, “Dude, I think you need to have some words with the TIVO because it was really giving me some LIP today.”

5. And she does NOT like to talk on the phone. She is currently trying to hire someone to fill her position before she goes on maternity leave, and describes it like this: “But there is a reason I posted the job online and only left my EMAIL ADDRESS. There is nothing in the ad implying that they should google my company until they find our phone number, call me up and interrupt my very important blog reading schedule to ask me stupid annoying questions about “what I’m looking for”. Send me a resume like everyone else! GOD! I swear, if these people knew me, they’d know they’ve automatically lost any chance they have just by trying to get me to talk on the phone.”

[Read more…] about Hi. My Name Is Jenny, And I Am A Phonophobiac

Filed Under: All About Me, The Naked Truth Tagged With: phone phobia

How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count The Ways

February 17, 2006 By Jenny Ryan 7 Comments

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

I’ve given this a lot of thought, and I’ve come to the conclusion that there just are not words to describe just how much I love my Black Berry.

I bought my Black Berry last year as a birthday gift to myself, and I have enjoyed it so much over the past year that sometimes it causes me to spontaneously burst out into verse:

“I think that I shall never see/a poem as lovely as my Black Berry.”

or song:

“Oh Black Berry, Oh Black Berry, how lovely is thy keypad.”

My Black Berry is like a tiny, tangible talisman of love. Whenever I hear it vibrating away as it receives some email I think, “Hooray! Someone wants to talk to me!

Of course to hear my husband describe it, my Black Berry love is less adoration and more addiction, but what does he know? Sure I like to have it near me at all times so as to instantly be able to access my emails, even to the point of keeping it right here on my desk with me as I work on my computer. And yeah, so maybe I did ask my husband to drive me down the mountain on which my in-laws’ house is located on Christmas Day so as to be able to receive a signal, despite the fact that they have wireless Internet connection at their house and I could technically do whatever I wanted or needed to do on my laptop. And yes, perhaps there have been times when I’ve awoken in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and have been seized with the uncontrollable urge to check my email despite the fact that I don’t actually know anyone who emails me important information at 3 am.

And don’t even get me started on Instant Messaging and Text Messaging! (Oops! Please excuse me for a moment while I wipe the drool off of my computer screen.)

But anyway, the point of all of this is that now I can stay in constant communication with all the people I like without actually having to speak with them on the phone. Because, and this has been a deep, dark secret of mine for a LONG time, I am a “phonophobiac”. Yes, that’s right. I am afraid of calling people on the phone.

For a long time I was even terrified of having to place my fast food order into those speaker boxes they have in the drive-through line. But I was soon cured of that because, let’s face it, what doesn‘t an order of McDonald’s French fries cure?

If you’re reading this and thinking, “What?!”, don’t worry. You’re not alone. I’ve only met one other person who understands this fear of mine. Everyone else just looks at me as if I’ve just said something like, “You know, I’ve found that having to breathe in and out on a regular basis is really just too much for me to deal with.”

I recently tried to explain this to my family, but they just gave me The Look. You know, the one that says, “I hear the words you’re saying, but they’re…just…not…making…any…sense.” (Incidentally, this is a look that I am VERY familiar with, as I frequently see this same expression on the faces of my tutoring students.)

“So,” ventured my dad slowly, struggling to understand what I was saying, “is it getting any better?”

“No,” I sighed, rolling my eyes so hard that I temporarily severed important connections to my brain, “the whole point is that I finally realize that I don’t have to get better. It is OK for me to be this way. I am finally coming out as a phonophobiac!”

“So, you’re embracing it,” offered my brother, who is himself a Professional in The Art Of Being Unreachable By Phone.

“Ex-actly!”

And all was well for the next hour or so, until I heard my mother calling up the stairs for me to pick up the phone so I could talk to not one, not two, but THREE people on the phone ALL AT THE SAME TIME.

So you’d better believe that the gods of irony are going to be hearing from me about this, just as soon as I figure out how to reach them electronically. Um, does anyone know how to IM the Universe?

Filed Under: All About Me, CFG Grapples With Technology, My Mind Works In Mysterious Ways, The Naked Truth Tagged With: BlackBerry, phone phobia

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