Public Service Announcement #537: silent days on the ridge ...
By Jonathan Middlebrook
Over the past few years I've resigned myself to the daily phone assault of robo-callers, cold-callers, out & out scammers, dental planners, people wishing to speak with Christina (died 1/20/2009), invalid numbers, service unavailables, dir asst 212, etc. So far this year I think my highest daily total (8 a.m. to 8 p.m.) is 19 such. I think 8 is about the lowest.
Whatever the total, each one arrives arrives at a uniquely inconvenient moment. Pray, my Dear, quoth my mother, have you not forgot to wind up the clock? Good G--! cried my father, making an exclamation . . . Did ever woman, since the creation of the world, interrupt a man with such a silly question? Pray, what was your father saying? --- Nothing. That's the obvious euphemism which opens the Rev. Laurence Sterne's novel Tristram Shandy in 1781. You can add a dozen such importunate interruptions by junk calls in 2019.