The telephone

all the phones i've had / all the joy it's brought me / until now

It is officially Mental Health May which is ridiculous and cheesy and doesn’t actually mean ANYTHING AT ALL because duh mental health is something that most people (read: not boomers) are constantly thinking about. I myself am the leader of the “I Feel Weird” epidemic!! All the “awareness” months/days our calendars are filled with are so nonsensical (apparently I missed “National Dance Day” earlier this week but as my boyfriend told me, that’s every day to me!) and yet I will take the opportunity to write about my love of telephones and how they used to make us happy.

Before I had a cell phone my parents subsided my desire for a cell phone by giving me a Mickey Mouse phone that hooked up to our landline from my bedroom. It obviously wasn’t my own phone number but it felt like it was and it held me over for a few years. I loved pressed the buttons soooo much. It didn’t matter that the phone call was almost never for me. I just enjoyed looking at it.

The first phone I had that was actually mine was a pink Nokia that is now referred to as “those brick phones.” My parents gave it to me in 2005 for my birthday. I was in 8th grade, had just turned 15, and it was meant to be an “emergency” phone. My older siblings, ages 19, 21, and 23, already had their own cell phones and it was slowly becoming a common item in American households, unlike the car phone my dad in the 90s as a doctor trying to stay in touch with the ER (I believe it cost them nearly 2 grand but was thought of as a necessary career purchase).

My Pink Nokia phone was the most exciting thing to happen to me since Girls Only!, a secret messaging game I received one Christmas to chat with my bestie Elaine through invisible ink. That was only one of the messaging devices we had with each other besides the obvious option of “passing notes” when Mrs. Momsen turned her back on the class. From a young age, It was already obvious, I loved to talk. In any way shape or form. Talking was huge for me. I got pulled out of class for talking, I got reprimanded in church for talking, talking was getting me in trouble everywhere I went but it was all I wanted to do.

I remember sitting in the corner of my bedroom plugging in the brand new Nokia, and waiting for it to charge. As soon as the tiny little square screen lit up I immediately dialed Elaine’s home phone number. I had her parents’ number memorized so I could reach her at all hours, unless of course she was not there and there was absolutely no reaching her. Her mother Laura answered and I was so excited to announce it was me, Hilary, on my own line. Not my parents’ line. MINE. Laura put Elaine on. We giggled for as long as we could, then she had to let someone else use the phone. Or maybe it was the internet. There were limits to these things back then. If Elaine couldn’t talk, I played snake. And that was it.

I’ve had the same phone number ever since. Remember that strange time in the mid 2000s when people kept like “having a new number”…? I don’t know what that was about. I don’t think it happens anymore? Were they all drug dealers? Hard to say!

Before I had my Nokia, the landline ruled the house and Elaine was obviously still the only person I called. The Campbell landline was constantly ringing. If it wasn’t the hospital looking for my father, it was one of my mother’s six siblings who needed to either tell her something really funny or really upsetting.

Plus, when you left home and came back, there were messages. Short messages, long messages, some with my Aunt Sherry’s laughter, some that gargled and you could barely make out what the person was trying to tell you. Was that the cable guy or Dad’s fishing friend from Nebraska? The only thing more exciting than being on the phone? Needing to call someone back. I mean…wow.

Our landline was a black and silver wireless phone that was always low on battery. If you forgot to put it back on the charger you were in, like, so much trouble. At night my father Doug was always talking with either a nurse or a patient. On Saturday and Sunday mornings, my mother Laurie spent wandered around in her robe, on the phone, doing chores, nibbling on toast. As the oldest sibling in her family she kept tabs on everyone’s life and was constantly checking in on them. I wanted to be on the phone as much as Laurie and Doug were. They were both clearly very important. People had so much to say to them! It had to be so interesting. The jokes! The gossip! The prescriptions!

Laurie told me stories of her times on the phone as a teenager in the late 60s, and how the cord they had stretched just long enough to move into another room so you could attempt a private conversation. I recall her brother, my Uncle Jim, telling me of his first time “calling a girl” off that landline in Los Gatos, California. He was so nervous that he wrote down “talking points” before hand on a little sheet of paper and made sure to hit all his thoughts before swiftly hanging up. Did he hang up too fast? Most likely, but he survived.

Just to have anyone to talk to was so cool to me. One time I was sitting in the passenger seat of my dad’s truck as we drove to Long’s Drug Store—a place we often visited so he could talk to the pharmacist (who, by the way, was the exact lookalike of David Duchovny) and I would steal candy from a secret drawer—and I waved at someone on the street. My dad asked if I saw a friend. I hadn’t. I didn’t know who I was waving at. I just wanted to seem like I knew people, and they knew me, and we had this whole thing going on where we talked to each other and it was really quite fascinating.

My Nokia phone lasted me a few years into high school until the battery started to die and this thing called a flip phone entered my life. The flip phone wasn’t exactly a novel thing, the first flip phone was released in 1996, but it was new to me. It was the LG VX8300. I loved the action of opening and closing it. The noise it would make as it slapped back into place!!! I could open and close that thing all day. Just like Romy in Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion! By then, Elaine had a cell phone too so not only had I memorized her parents’ number, I now knew her number by heart. Plus a couple others like my mom, dad, sisters’ and brother and my parent’s office line. Oh also Mary’s Pizza. I can still shout it out, 707-938-8300! Feel free to place an order of breadsticks for me (I’ll be there in a month).

While texting was starting to become a thing 2007 it wasn’t something to rely on. You were charged per text, and with the t9 formula, you weren’t exactly sending stream of consciousness essays like you do, or at least I do, now. The most I received was “g2g” and “call me.” Which I would do, without fear. I’d call Elaine, I’d call my sister, I’d call whoever really. One time freshman year, a girl came over who I had just met and she asked me to call this boy for her. His name was Mike and she wanted to know if he’d be at the football game that night but she didn’t want to call him herself. So I did and he answered. He would be at the game! We would see him there. I didn’t know why I had to do the calling but who cares. She was giggling so much with excitement and now, I had Mike’s number. How special. I loved having a new number. Perhaps he would talk to me later. (no lol)

Talking to people on the phone was so normal to me. It’s what you did when you had questions about homework, needed to complain about how insane your parents were being right now, or something actually important; In 2008 I told my first boyfriend Stephen on the phone that I loved him. I remember standing by my bedroom window, late at night, looking out at the moon on the phone with him, counseling him about a fight he had gotten into with his father about football. I wanted to hug him and fix the situation, but I couldn’t because I couldn’t leave the house, and I just knew it then. I had to tell him. And he said it back. My heart exploded. “I love you too, Hilary Campbell.” We were together for 2 years.

I’ve had so many phones since then. I had a Razr, I had a Blackberry, one time at the mall I bought a Batman phone. It was this promotional sale they were doing for the release of The Dark Knight and I was so obsessed with Heath Ledger, while also mourning his death, so when I saw a kiosk offering a phone pre-loaded with lines of dialogue from the movie I jumped. I didn’t care that it was a simple black Nokia flip phone and the only real excitement was a few Batman background options. It would be my sign of being a true fan of Christopher Nolan, and the biggest supporter of Heath Ledger out there since Michelle Williams. I had to have it.

Despite how many phones I went through, nothing compared to my brother Danny who by the age of 25 had lost something like 30 phones. He lost one in a car, he lost one in a bar, he lost one in Florida, which by the way, is very far. He was the Dr. Seuss of losing his phone. Everyone in the family made jokes that Danny could write a great coffee table book about the stories of where and how he lost each phone. I, by the way, still think it’s a good idea.

No matter how many phones the Campbells have all been through, the purpose of phones in our family never waned. We talked to people. We talked to each other. We still do. I don’t “warn people” before I call them. I just call. Neither do I worry when they don’t answer*. I just leave a voicemail, we will talk later! I’m not like “OH GOD I PROBABLY SCARED THE SHIT OUT OF THEM.” And the same goes for people who call me. If I can talk, I’ll answer, if I can’t talk, I’ll call ya later. I (and I realize I’m now in the minority) have no idea what the big deal is to people nowadays who are so afraid to pick up a call. Unless it’s your bank and like of course I get it.

*Ok one time Elaine didn’t answer the phone for 3 days and I flipped out and called everyone in her family, left voicemails everywhere, only to find out they were all on a vacation somewhere in like Spain or something, then I had to re-call everyone and leave an apology voicemail for all the panicking. I’ll never live it down, but hey at least I care!!

Our family groupchat is the OG style, a game of telephone

I continued to be a Chatty Cathy through college, I even started recording my mother’s phone calls to animate them because I enjoyed them so much*. If you aren’t aware, here’s one of the episodes…

*very aware that I could not record calls on an old phone so yes, there is an upside to technology!

After college when I moved to Los Angeles I found out I could hook up a landline for free with my cable and internet subscription in the home I shared with new dear friend Willa in Echo Park. For free??? Why wouldn’t I do it then!? I had a cord phone I bought at a thrift store, originally for a Sidney from Scream Halloween costume, that I could use. So I wiped off the fake blood and hooked the phone up to the jack. It felt great. We arranged one of the lounge chairs in the living room to be next to the landline, and I would call my mom from it and talk about movies we were watching on TCM. I hooked that same phone back up in Brooklyn* during covid shutdown and it brought me an immense amount of joy (you can read that comic here) as well as some of the best and most elaborate prank phone calls that I will will cherish forever. Not to mention the amount of focus it allowed me if I turned off my cell phone and solely used my landline for communication.

*No longer free to add, but only $10 more a month with internet

About a month ago I walked into my boyfriend James’ apartment with my friend Dakota. We were all supposed to be heading to a friend’s Murder Mystery Party and were for sure going to be late already. Earlier in the week James had been referring to some sort of “surprise” he had for me, but I had no idea what he meant by it and didn’t know when it might be arriving. As Dakota and I walked down the hallway, James stepped in front of us and said “Are you ready?” I didn’t understand. For the party? Yes. We needed to leave like NOW. But that wasn’t what he was talking about.

PS we were late to the party

I am 100% positive this will remain to be one of the greatest gifts I’ll ever receive in my life. We have plans to build a real phone booth in the apartment. My hope is to have a notepad in there for “who called” and to complain in the future about the booth getting graffitied. “Not again!!”

It’s no surprise to me that there’s been a recent push towards abandoning smartphones. I know people who have returned to the flip phone, cartoonist Hallie Bates has been very vocal about it, and I know people who are big fans of the Light Phone, a company that boasts itself on returning your time back to you, with a “light” phone that has messaging, an alarm clock, maps, and of course, the actual purpose and definition of a phone, the ability to call someone. This phone continues to sell out and is once again available for pre-order.

I am in no way saying I am perfect and that I never overuse my “smartphone.” The reason I’m writing this piece is because I’m horribly addicted to it and am desperate to return to the former version of myself who did not look at a bright screen every minute and thirty seconds to find out if there’s a notification from something somewhere.

Even this platform, Substack, encourages you to turn notifications on your phone so you can be immediately pinged when someone releases a new essay, comments on your newsletter, or likes a recent Note from you wrote about a turtle you saw in Central Park. I recently turned those notifications off, I have most notifications turned off—except for texts, calls, and my bank, who loves to remind me “Your checking account has dipped below the $100 limit you selected.” I wish my phone still only rang when there was an actual phone call and it wasn’t a telemarketer trying to trick me by using my hometown area code.

If you have any advice as to how I can get off these telemarketers’ lists PLEASE TELL ME.

Like so many people, I want to get off my phone, but I feel so conflicted because of my career. (Just remembered a piece I wrote for The New Yorker many years ago titled Things You Could’ve Done Instead of Checking Your Phone) Everything about writing, cartooning, being a comedian and a filmmaker is about being online. Sharing new content, posting on Instagram, writing my newsletter and responding to comments as they come in. SHARE SHARE SHARE SHARE SHARE! As you know, all of this requires me being attached to my iPhone.

I recently wrote in to an advice column about this (haven’t heard back!! has anyone EVER heard back from an advice column??) begging for help over how to reckon with our modern dilemma. Not to mention the fact that I work from home alone and am an extremely chatty woman so I love all my groupchats. I don’t know what I’d do without them! If I can’t be talking on the phone, I’m texting, because it makes me feel good! It’s a horrible predicament that so many people have been facing for years. What on earth am I supposed to do. Somethings gotta give right?? Will you tell me what to do??????

I don’t have any solutions (hahah yes I do, but I don’t want to follow through), but it makes me sad when I hear that people don’t call their friends/family/pizza place anymore. It’s the number one thing I do (second is dancing) when I feel bad, sad, lonely, strange, weird, manic, impulsive, excited, just ok… the list goes on. Calling my friends and family gets me out of my own head. It’s such a relief to hear how others are doing, share a laugh, and chat about whatever the hell is going on with your day. Every day when I walk Margie to the park, I start calling people. I just go down the line. If my mom doesn’t answer I call my sister, if my sister doesn’t answer I call Elaine, if Elaine doesn’t answer I call my cousins, if my cousins don’t answer I call my brother, if my brother doesn’t answer I start thinking about who I haven’t heard from in awhile outside of New York. Derek?? Amanda?? Vivian?? Beth!!!!

Before the release of the iPhone, phones were so exciting. Every new model from the competing sellers was wild and different. They had fun names like Sidekick, Chocolate, Razr, enV, and now it’s just iPhone 10, iPhone 12, iPhone with better and better camera. But as cool as the phones in the early 2000s were, the main purpose of nearly 99% of them was to chat with your friends. They were phones, not TVs, not jobs, not mood destroyers.

Calling people can save me from losing my mind half the time. When no one calls me for awhile, it gets me down. I’d be so lonely without my phone calls.

I still have my landline in my bedroom. It rang the other morning so I answered only to find, somehow some wires had been crossed and I was listening in on some woman’s conversation. She seemed upset about “a girl in Florida.” It was riveting. Makes me want to watch Pillow Talk.

Thank you for reading! New posts every Friday!

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• Plus: Mental Health Dance Party on May 9th!!!!!

• On Repeat: Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia) by Us3

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