Phone Features
by Lore Sjöberg

Mute
I can't bring myself to trust mute, no matter how steadfastly the little red light shines. I've been raised on too many sitcoms not to expect mute buttons, microphone off switches, and office door locks to fail whenever it leads to hilarious levels of social awkwardness. It's the same reason I don't dress up in a disguise to make sure my girlfriend isn't cheating on me, only to bungle the attempt and in the process ruin the surprise party she had planned for my birthday.o B-

Redial
This is another button that can be awkward, because you can hit redial to invite a friend to catch a movie, but you forgot that you tried to call your own mother a half-hour ago, and this time she answers the phone, and you end up asking "who's this?" before realizing what you did, so you can't play it cool and you didn't want to talk to her right now anyway and anyway the movie's going to start real soon so you have to tell your mom you don't want to talk to her or you'll miss the movie and if you're lucky you'll drop into some sort of coma before you get that far. B

Emergency Dial
I think I can remember "911" by myself, thanks. usually the phone comes with three emergency buttons, and I can't even think of two other numbers that I'd need to call in an emergency situation. I guess I could call the correct time, I always found the time lady's voice kind of soothing, maybe that would help. And I could also call my friend Lindy, because she's never home and has an answering machine, so I could leave cool last words for future generations to treasure. C+

Memory Dial
I never use memory dial. This is because I am so lazy that I can't even be bothered to put in the effort to set up effort-conserving devices. Getting memory dial to work would involve working out my phone number priorities in detail, finding the phone instructions, looking up each number in my PDA, hell, it's too tedious to even finish talking about it. Modern phones have lifespans so short that, if they were breeding organisms, they'd have to give birth to hundreds of phonelings just to keep the species going, so it just doesn't seem worth it. C-

Flash
This is much less exciting than it sounds. Phones could flash in so many interesting ways that it's a pity they use the word to mean "hang up then stop hanging up real quick-like." I understand this feature is real handy for those with call waiting, but my loathing for call waiting is so great that I consider that a negative, kind of like pointing out that a given dog food can also be used to raise giant infectious death geckos. C

Lit Buttons
A great feature, so great that it shouldn't be considered a feature, but rather a basic expectation. Since I have to buy a new phone about every six months -- I assume this is because about 1983 phone manufacturers started building phone wiring out of atom-thin strands of gossamer moonlight -- I sometimes accidentally get one without a lit face, and I am consternated in much the same way that I would be if I bought the one car that didn't have "Comes with a driver's seat!" in the ad. A