Phoning someone is always impertinent. There is nothing more unpleasant than receiving a call. Only someone who really hates us can do something as terrible as taking a phone out of their pocket, cruelly pressing our name, and trying to communicate with us. Undoubtedly, of all the discomforts of modern life, the cell phone is the most painful and widespread. 

Let these lines serve as a tribute to the old telephone and as the founding act of the Return to the Corded Telephone Foundation.
The possibility of being reachable at all times has given way to being obliged to be located. Not even instant messaging, concise and effective, has been able to appease the cravings of a few nags, who need to call at all costs without caring in the least if you are sleeping, giving a speech, or at your pet’s funeral.
Our wise ancestors invented a telephone attached to a wire. This prevented the sender from attacking the receiver no matter where they may be. Thus, telephone violence was reduced to the home, the office, or wherever there was one of these devices, greatly minimizing the risk of being struck by the telephone. To be effective, it was essential that the receiver was also in the vicinity of another telephone, and that the caller was aware of said location.
Now that was a smartphone! If you were not available, it exhausted the sender’s patience with boring tones, giving him little hope with an energetic answering machine. When you were talking to someone else, it conveyed that you were “engaged” with a distinctive sound that did nothing to encourage a repeat call via the more modern and probably unconstitutional “call on hold.”
The telephone of yesteryear, when it rang, did not emit Daddy Yankee’s Gasolina, but simply went “ring.” Austere, impertinent, and impossible to silence, which is what you’d expect from an alarm. But then again, those lovely black circular-dialed specimens made the call a solemn, handcrafted rite. Most of the time you would mix up one digit or anothe...