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The other day I was filling out some form or another -- when you've got a daughter starting college within the month, you must set aside time every day for filling out forms -- and realized that this process gets more complicated by the day.
The complication comes at the part about one's address and telephone number.
I've got a mailing address, a post-office box. There's a street address, where I try not to get mail, but necessary for package deliveries. There's another post-office box for the small magazine we publish.
Thus I have two private nine-digit Zip codes, 81201-0548 and 81201-0946, as well as 81201-3136, which I share only with the next-door neighbor. This postal abundance makes me feel important sometimes, and we all know how vital a healthy sense of self-esteem is these days.
Then there's our main phone number, listed in the local phone book, to the astonishment of some callers. I understand the rationale for unlisted numbers, but in my experience, an unlisted number puts a terrible burden on your friends.
Dozens of times I have been interrupted by someone who knows that I know Mr. and Mrs. Unlisted Number, and who wants me to pass along their number.
This requires a moral decision. Do I give out the number, even though my unlisted acquaintance obviously doesn't want the telephone number in circulation? Do I just lie and say I don't know the number? Do I offer to call the Unlisteds and pass along a message? Can I determine whether the caller who wants the Unlisteds is actually an old college friend seeking to repay a loan, or is in fact a bill collector with a clever patter?
Do I want to be mulling over these issues when I've got other things to do? I try to follow the Golden Rule in these matters -- if it were my number which was unlisted, would I want someone else to give it out in these circumstances?
But would I want my friends to be forced to go through this on my account? Well, no, and thus the listed number, easy to find since there are only nine Q's in the Salida directory.
But there's no point in listing it here. Directory assistance fees and long-distance tolls discourage quick and angry calls from metropolitan residents who want to give me an earful. As soon as those critics realize that it will cost them money out of their pockets to call and yell at me, most of them swallow their bile, ponder the matter, and after sober reflection conclude that I am a sagacious savant whose writings are above criticism.
There's a second telephone line. In theory it is listed, but it has never appeared properly in the directory, so it might as well be unlisted. That line is used mostly for faxes, computer connections, magazine matters and outbound calls. It is also a necessity because you can have an accessible telephone line or you can have teenagers, but you can't have both.
Much communication takes place these days by computer
with electronic mail -- email.
Since acquiring my first modem in 1984, I've had several e-mail addresses. There was MCI mail at first, and then GEnie for a while. I no longer subscribe to those services, and a local Fido-net bulletin board, where I also received messages, closed down years ago.
So I think I'm down to two email addresses (73327,544 on
CompuServe, and coloctl@rmi.net
on the Internet, in
case you're curious), but I'm not sure. Often I find files
on my computer whose origin is a complete mystery, and for
all I know, some email service that I've forgotten about
calls at night and deposits this stuff when I'm not
looking.
And with Windows, which I am forced to use even though I feel more comfortable typing than pointing, I never know which files can be safely deleted. Removing some file which looks perfectly useless can lead to a hung system or worse.
The easiest solution is to buy a bigger hard drive every year or two. The prices keep dropping, and it's a lot easier to install a gigabyte or two than to try to figure out what might be safely deleted from the old drive.
However, even though I have at least two e-mail
addresses, two postal addresses, a street address, a home
phone number and a fax phone number, I lack a work
telephone number, a cellular telephone number, an answering
service number and a pager number.
But I've dealt with people who have all those numbers,
and they tell me they need them because it's vital that
other people be able to reach them immediately at all
times. However, when I've tried to reach them, going down a
long list of numbers and codes before I get through, the
process is anything but immediate.
Usually, at about
the fourth number, I decide that whatever it is can
wait.
And besides, I like the idea that when I'm off on a walk, or driving down the road, nobody can interrupt me with a call.
Granted, one might suffer a loss of status in not having a pocket phone these days, but I just tell people that my cellular number is unlisted.
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