June 8, 2016 Article

The Old Coot didn’t call you. The cat did.

By Merlin Lessler

When cell phones first came into popularity, a new term was coined –the Butt-call. You’d shove the phone in your pocket, sit down, and it would call someone on your contact list. That was back in the days when the phones were mechanical; you had to physically move a button to get it to perform a task. Butt calls are rarer now, partially due to smart phones replacing dumb phones, but mostly due to the fact that people seldom put their phone down. They are tied to it more firmly than they were once tied to their umbilical chord.

Even so, some of us still make a proverbial butt call, but a more accurate term for this, when an old coot like me does it, is a finger-slip call. Old guys do this a lot. We’re working with a double handicap; we’re touch-screen challenged and we’re not hip to many of the capabilities of our smart phones. We’ll be editing our contact list or scrolling through a menu and our finger slips. Then someone’s phone starts to ring.  

It wouldn’t be so bad if the receiver of the call didn’t find out who called and hung up, but that’s not the case. Our society’s phone-o-phobia makes people uneasy when they notice a missed call.  And, with the caller’s number right there in front of them, tempting them to check it out, the phone phobics do just that. “You called?" One will ask. “What did you want?” We give the Butt-call excuse, not willing to admit to our ineptness.

That’s OK with some of the people we butt call, but not the people who are monitoring our descent into old age. It sets off an alarm for them. Wow! The Old Coot is really slipping. That’s the third time this month he called me and hung up. I bet he forgot why he was calling and that’s why he hung up. It’s like a giant report card, broadcasting our latest shortcoming via cell phone towers. It’s bad enough to have people evaluate our slide into senility when they see us in person, but with our shaky fingers hovering above a cell phone, our deterioration goes viral. 

Even my doctor is in on the conspiracy. The last time I saw mine, he asked me to count backwards form one hundred by sevens. I got the first one right. - One hundred! And, without using my fingers, the second one, ninety-three. Then, like a knight riding in on a white horse to save a damsel in distress, my phone started to ring. It was a butt-call from some other old coot, but I pretended it was a real call and told the doctor I had an emergency at home and had to leave. What a lie! But, I got away. And, a good thing too. I’d never have come up with 95 or 96 or whatever the number seven down from 93 is. And, I knew he was also going to ask me to spell my full name backwards, skipping every other letter. I dodged a bullet that time.

Which is a perfect example of why old coots tell lies, especially if we sense that someone is raising an eyebrow, doing a senility evaluation. So, if you get a missed call from me and call back for an explanation I’ll tell you right now, you’re gunna get a lie, Oh sorry. My phone was on the counter and the cat was playing with it. 

Comments (except about the improper use of “rarer” in my first paragraph). Send to mlessler7@gmail.com