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Post-Apocalypse Now
Not a scene from The Book of Eli or 2013, no, just real life in the neighborhood near you. It’s weird how the pay phones, disuse and disrepair, get removed but the exterior of the “booth” stick around. Yes, yes, cellphones are fine things now that everybody has one but let’s be honest, how often have you despised the invention of the mobile phone. At least, once? I know I have. I don’t exactly miss using phone booths, I just remember using them. Like in college, I’ll never forget calling Stephanie from this lonesome phone booth in the pine barrens—I saw her phone number and memorized it and I asked if she minded me calling her. She said, I’ve been thinking about you all the time, too. I was 20. I can still remember the night air, the chill, no one nearby, no one in the world except she on the other line and me in the booth, my pocket bulging with change, all the change I had. The pay phone world is gone—oh sure, there are still some that work, train and bus stations, but how many more are just this, a remnant of a city that was, another piece of wreckage we’ve learned to live with. Tell me Daddy again, of the before time, when a call cost a dime and being connected to a network was a choice, not a mandatory requirement.
Not a scene from The Book of Eli or 2013, no, just real life in the neighborhood near you. It’s weird how the pay phones, disuse and disrepair, get removed but the exterior of the “booth” stick around. Yes, yes, cellphones are fine things now that everybody has one but let’s be honest, how often have you despised the invention of the mobile phone. At least, once? I know I have. I don’t exactly miss using phone booths, I just remember using them. Like in college, I’ll never forget calling Stephanie from this lonesome phone booth in the pine barrens—I saw her phone number and memorized it and I asked if she minded me calling her. She said, I’ve been thinking about you all the time, too. I was 20. I can still remember the night air, the chill, no one nearby, no one in the world except she on the other line and me in the booth, my pocket bulging with change, all the change I had. The pay phone world is gone—oh sure, there are still some that work, train and bus stations, but how many more are just this, a remnant of a city that was, another piece of wreckage we’ve learned to live with. Tell me Daddy again, of the before time, when a call cost a dime and being connected to a network was a choice, not a mandatory requirement. 
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