Telephones have never given me anything but grief, and if it wasn’t for other people I’d likely have nothing to do with them. Either they ring when you don’t want them to ring or they never ring when you do, which is why I generally try to avoid situations wherein I’d want them to ring. This one came with the apartment otherwise I’d have chucked it out a long time ago, and either way have never seen a phone bill or even know the number it goes by. It’s one of those older phones, the kind that hang on the wall in the bathroom with a rotary dial, seafoam green, and sometimes it just rings, and when it does I stare at it like birdsong burst forth from the bowels of the toilet beneath me before I wipe my ass and pick it up.

Originally published January 29, 2015 in Fiddleblack, Issue 18.

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