Week Eleven: Panic

I have always had a special fondness for the red emergency phones (seen mostly in the movies)...and I have always loved Maxwell Smart and his shoe phone...so when I saw this phone in the library of a university campus, I was instantly smitten.

In fact, one of the things missing from my life is a RED emergency phone. Thus: Week Eleven: Panic. How many times have I panicked and wished the solution was as simple as picking up the red phone’s receiver to broadcast the emergency to all the appropriate people?

Yes. I have panicked while standing next to an insubordinate copy machine with a deadline looming over my head. Yes. I have panicked when I realized a portion of my assignment was damaged or missing...and not because the dog ate it...but because of the doggone copier. Yes, I have had copier ink explode and cover an area with a fine, ashy powder that made Mount St. Helens look like a joke. My relationship with copiers is mostly a hate-hate relationship.

And so we discover yet one more reason why I love the red emergency phone...any phone, actually, with such a profound love. Read on for a tribute to the great machine: the telephone...

Dictionary: telephone (te(l'e-fo-n') n. An instrument that converts voice and other sound signals into a form that can be transmitted to remote locations and that receives and reconverts waves into sound signals.

v., -phoned, -phon'ing, -phones. v.tr. 1. To speak with (a person) by telephone. 2. To initiate or make a telephone connection with; place a call to. 3. To transmit (a message, for example) by telephone. v.intr. To engage in communication by telephone. telephoner tel'e phon'er

n. WORD HISTORY The noun telephone is one of a class of technological and scientific words made up of combining forms derived from classical languages, in this case tele– and –phone. Tele– is from the Greek combining form te-le– or te-l–, a form of te-le, meaning “afar, far off,” while –phone is from Greek pho-ne-, “sound, voice.”

Thank you to the internet and Answers.com for more than amply providing information surrounding the telephone: http://www.answers.com/topic/telephone.

This blog is dedicated to all who know and love me...those who have received a panic call from me...for whatever reason it was... There have been many people and many panics over the years. I am so very glad I can hear “far off sound” or “afar voices” of reassurance-thanks to the telephone.

Now, about getting my own RED Panic Phone...