All Representatives Are Busy

Scene: The laboratory of Alexander Graham Bell. It is March 10, 1876. At curtain rise, Bell (played by Charles Durning) enters stage left, obviously in some state of agitation, and advances center stage to pick up phone.

Bell: (aside to audience) I must speak to my colleague Thomas Watson, for I am in a state of agitation.

Pretends to dial phone, concealing act from audience because phone is empty Campbell’s tomato soup can attached to a string disappearing stage right. Loud ringing is heard. Off stage, assistant simulates ringing by running a thimbled finger over a corrugated washboard several times.

Watson: (voice of Jim Carrey off stage) You have reached the residence of Thomas Watson. If you wish this conversation in English, press 1. Si desea hablar en español, marque el numero 2. Sorry, je ne parle pas Française.

Bell: (agitated) Watson, this is a matter of some urgency. Pick up!

Watson: If you know the extension of the party you wish to speak with -- or, more grammatically -- with whom you wish to speak, you may dial it now. Please choose from the following menu:

* If this is in regard to my being late for work, press 1.

* If this concerns the back order for more cans and a longer string, press 2.

* If you wish ...

Bell: Pick up, Watson, you moron! We haven’t invented the dial yet; there are no buttons to push. Yell into the open end of the can!

Watson: ... to speak to me personally, press zero.

Bell: (pretends to push zero) Idiot!

Watson: My circuit is busy right now. Your call is important to me. Please hold and your call will be answered in the order in which it was received.

The sound of "Shine on Harvest Moon" as played through a tissue folded over a comb is heard in the background.

Bell: (very agitated) What the hell are you talking about? There are only two telephones in the whole world, and I’ve got the other one.

Watson: All my representatives are busy. Please continue to hold. Your call is important to me.

A three-piece kazoo combo plays a selection of popular tunes from The Mikado in the background.

Bell: Stop clowning around, Thomas. I’ve got to say "Watson, come here. I want you." It’s in all the history books.

Watson: Hello? Boss? Is that you? I didn’t know you played a kazoo. Hold on a sec. I’ve got something on the other line.

Bell: (with mounting agitation) Now cut that out; there IS no other line!

Watson: It’s my clothes line; I’m hanging out my laundry.

Online static simulated by crinkling cellophane close to simulated Mattel microphone.

Bell: (extremely agitated) Hello!

Watson: Hello? Who is this, really?

Operator: Please deposit $17.85 for another three minutes.

At curtain fall, Alexander Graham Bell, famous for being the first to popularize the three-name craze in opposition to the uni-named Cher, Sting, Madonna, et al., is seen demolishing the prototype telephonic device with a large simulated club in an agitated manner.

The foregoing, of course, is fiction. Unfortunately, the telephone has evolved since that eventful March day in 1876 to dominate approximately 75 percent of our waking hours and interrupt 25 percent of our sleeping hours. After 1895, Bell’s interests turned to aeronautics. He foresaw the time a hundred years hence when everyone from age 5 up would have a cell phone surgically attached to his or her ear. Not wishing to leave this catastrophe as his legacy, he took the manly way out and told everyone it was his mother’s ("Ma" Bell’s) idea.

Thomas Watson never did find out what Bell wanted and assumed it was a wrong number. He later founded five separate telephone companies and spent the rest of his life calling Bell at his dinner hour importuning him to switch his long distance carrier. Alexander Graham Bell died at age 75 in 1922 from what his doctors labeled "terminal agitation."

If the fear of radiation from the cell phones doing irreparable damage to our brains has some foundation in fact, it may be time for the more progressive of us to lay in a supply of soup cans and start saving string. The system is already deregulated as far as I can tell. The difficulty will be differentiating the brain-damaged folks from the ordinary agitated people.

Pull quotes

Your call is important to me. Please hold and your call will be answered in the order in which it was received

Please deposit $17.85 for another three minutes.