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Show sQsoim jjHwp by Nan Chalat Reach out and touch someone-with someone-with a letter and a 22 cent stamp Leave me alone on a cold winter morning and I'll eventually drift over to the telephone to do some long-distance dialing. It is an expensive habit, one I've tried to curb or at least channel into letter writing, but to no avail. For a quick fix of friendship, nothing beats Ma Bell or nothing used to. Recently this simple pleasure has started to become more complicated. Last Saturday I prudently tried to take advantage of the full 60 percent discount rate when calling an old college friend in Portland, Oregon. But after our initial round of hello, how-are-yous, the line went dead. After shouting and straining to hear a reply, I had to hang up and hoped for the best. He called back and the reception this time was clear , as a bell. I apologized for my second-hand ,, telephone and promised not to jiggle the cord again. He said no, it must have been his new install-it-yourself model which had nearly electrocuted him the weekend before. While trying to figure out whose phone was at fault I'm sure we more than compensated for the discount. When my parents called later that morning we shouted over the crackle of their super-saver long-distance dialer which they suspect is worse on the upstairs (or is it the kitchen) phone. They ran back and forth to see which was better while I frantically wiggled the plug on my end. So far, though, I've had a clear line to Denver, where my brother resides with his baby girl. He used to have two lines at home and would frequently interrupt our conversations to see whether the other call was a client or a racquetball date. And while I can tolerate that kind of treatment when I call him at work, I didn't think he had to be quite so "available" during his time off. Now he is back to one line and an answering service and I'm much happier. To make matters worse, our new state-of-the-art telephone system at the office isn't much better than my reconditioned wall phone at home whose only special feature is a long cord for pacing, looking for a pencil and gourmet gossiping. The office phones are equipped with speed dialing, call holding, exculsive hold, an intercom system that I am afraid to try, a memory bank for ten personal numbers, a monitor key and a do-not-disturb mode. The speed dialer is programmed with our discount , long-distance service, access.. code,. and my personal ! ,v identification number, thank goodness. But for some strange reason the long-distance calls are barely audible. One staff member has been reduced to plunging his head into the far corner of his cubbyhole while trying to decipher the murmurings on the other end of the fine and I've resigned myself to keeping an index finger in my other ear. This comes on the heels of a year with phones at work whose lines wouldn't light up and of dealing with an independent phone company at home whose local trunk lines specialized in random connections among similar numbers. Frankly, its getting tougher and tougher to reach out and touch someone and a postage stamp, even at 22 cents, is beginning to look like a bargain. |