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He handed me a phone.
“Don't answer it,” he said.
“...Can I call someone with it?” I asked.
“That's fine,” he rubbed his head.
The phone rang. I glanced up—
He was standing in the corner
Pulling hairs off his scalp.
“Don't answer it. I warned you.”
“But then, why did you give me this goddam phone?!
If you'd kept it, I wouldn't be tempted.”
“If I'd kept it, then how could you call anyone?
I swear, you're so smart, and same-time senseless.”
Well, that made me mad: he hands me, tells me... he's senseless.
So next time it rang, I decided
To show him that maybe, sure, HE picked up wrong,
But I could handle answering. So I did:
“Hello! Good morning. Is this person X?”
“Um no, person Y. Who are you?”
“Oh, we're just calling people like yourself
Today, to ask them a question or two.”
“People like myself? But you asked who I was;
You didn't know. So—who do you mean?”
“Oh, we just wanted to talk to the kind of
Folks who would answer their machine...”
By the time I had begged, shouted, slammed down that call,
I felt tired and ashamed. And the man—
Who had handed it off—had no hairs
On his head. “So now you understand,”
He whispered with soft-sorrow eyes,
But also a bit of a smile. “Look, a boy!”
I turned, and there, a glowing little
Man. He reached for our phone like a toy.
I imagined all the worlds that he could build,
Together with his friends, linking voices in a day.
So, filled with fearful love, I spoke strongly by his ears:
“Tool your dreams with this. But don't answer it, okay?”
This poem reminds me of the absurd, of Albert Camus’s work: The Stranger. The idea of the spam call is absurd in that he is handed a phone but told not to answer it. When he decides to answer it anyway, he is lied to. The pollsters who make the call want to extract information from him, take the speaker’s time for their own gain. It is absurd that the speaker is handed the phone but told not to answer. The absurdity of the situation makes him grow angry and frustrated at the state of existence he is in. I have gotten a number of calls like this, asking me to give them my personal information, not credit card or social security numbers, but my perspectives and points of view of the political state of affairs. It always strikes me as odd anyone would waste their time answering them because time is valuable and there is not value to be gained from spending time and effort answering the questions of an anonymous pollster who is just going to call someone else. Once, like the speaker, I answered the call and said I was willing to answer some questions that “would only take 5 minutes.” I thought I was being nice. Instead, I spent over twenty minutes answering random questions and ranking the economy, border, social issues and stuff I didn’t even understand on a 10 point scale. Eventually I felt tired and annoyed and simply hung up. It seems to me there is no purpose in answering anything like that. I find that there is so much potential in a phone but it is important to follow the advice of wiser people to use it safely and productively.
ReplyDeleteMeh ~ you don't have to follow older people's advice :) Just know that, one day, you'll be giving advice like that and being ignored by someone young who thinks they know better than you, lol. "The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." - William Blake
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