Sometimes It's Fine To Hang Up The Phone

I probably don’t need to tell you this.

I know, it is incredibly likely that I am one of the few people under the age of fifty who answers their phone no matter what. Whether the number is unknown or not. Whether the screen tells me the number is coming from Liverpool and I don’t know one solitary soul who could possibly be there I always pick up.

I feel like it’s the same reason I keep bits of random paper from university and receipts for things like my glasses I overpaid for in Boots and mattresses that cost half my rent. Because I am petrified of the day this annoying clutter will suddenly be incredibly important.

In my mind, these calls are the same thing. It could be the hospital, or that Perfect Job I applied for five months ago or maybe my Deliveroo driver with the dinner I easily could have made myself. So, every time I pick up. This on its own wouldn’t be terrible. Who doesn’t want to make sure important things aren’t slipping by? Sometimes picking up the phone can solve a lot of problems. But, the thing is, I struggle to hang up.

Not in the “I could talk for England” type of way some people have. But in the “I really don’t want to be rude” kind of way.

The one call, the worst example of my idiotic dedication to politeness happened about two years ago.

I was at my boyfriend’s house and just as I had convinced him to help me make a chicken dish for dinner my phone started to ring. I accepted the call and told him I’d be down in a second. On the other end was a lovely woman who asked me if she could just have a few minutes of my time. I told her I couldn’t talk but she insisted it’d just be a few minutes. I, as if I had gained sentience the previous Tuesday, believed her.

Suddenly, I imagined what this woman’s day must be like. Working a mind-numbingly boring job ringing number after number, enduring a mixture of abrupt hang-ups and abuse from people who were more “fiery” than most. I thought of the soul-crushing drudgery of basically being paid to interrupt someone’s day and that maybe if I just heard her out she would at the very least it would mean she wouldn’t be sworn at for a few minutes and at most, start to repair her faith in humanity. I was probably aiming a bit too high with the latter.

I thought my escape would be swift when she asked me if I liked cars or drove and would be interested in a monthly car magazine and I answered no to both, proudly. Yes, I may be at the mercy of TFL but at least I could leave this phone call knowing I truly had nothing to offer this woman. Sadly, her questions persisted.

She asked me if I liked to cook and I forgot of the vast amount of money I spent on takeaways weekly because I was bathing in the afterglow of committing to cooking a real dinner and replied yes. This was the beginning of the end.

She sold me a cookbook. Just one pound for a free issue and in a few months, I would have to pay the full subscription quarterly. I could cancel at any time of course. I relented and gave her my details. Yes, I can hear you all screaming but this story is not over. It didn’t stop at cookbooks. She sold me other magazines and I said yes because I assumed I could cancel this all easily the following week and I would be no worse off really. Out the price of a Costa coffee. What could be the harm?

I ended my call twenty-five minutes later. My boyfriend returned upstairs utterly bewildered how I was still on the phone. Probably, like everyone who has read this far. But, I was eventually free.

The next week I hid away in an unused room in my office and called number after number to cancel these trials. Most of them I got through. Except for the cookbooks. They never answered when I called. I tried a few days later and still no response.

I vowed to get back to it eventually but . . . I didn’t. The cookbooks came. They were short but had wonderful colourful covers and were full of glossy pictures of gorgeous food. Some were somewhat simple but others required ingredients I had never heard of that I knew in my heart of hearts were too expensive to be used for experimenting with a new dish. I put them up in my kitchen. Despite the way they had come to be in my life they did make me look better than I was. Like a woman who stayed in her kitchen and perfected recipes day after day. Like a woman who was dedicated to the culinary arts AND supporting the dying print industry. I was basically a hero.

They kept coming. I forgot about the true cost of it. I leaned into it. I would recommend recipes to friends when they were organizing dinner parties. I gazed at several recipes repeatedly wishing I was the kind of person with any sort of follow-through on elaborate dishes. And, the thing is, I did become a woman who cooks. But my cooking is haphazard and spontaneous. I love not measuring spices and sprinkling basil, and paprika with reckless abandon and feeling truly self-satisfied when it comes out completely delicious. With these dishes, I convince myself I have the “magic touch” or a “chef's intuition” and that cookbooks would simply stifle my boundless creativity and potential for mouth-watering discoveries.

To this day I have only tried one recipe from the twelve books (sometimes they send me the same one twice in a month) I have accumulated over the years. I followed it to the T and I regret to tell you it was spectacular.

But the forty pounds that comes out of my bank account every six months hurts nonetheless. It always seems to come in the worst months too. The months where I have caved and finally bought that ludicrously priced blazer. Where I have not been bothered to catch a bus and a tube and a train to get home after going over to a friend's house and suffered through Uber drivers with road rage just to avoid having to shiver on a platform for ten minutes.

The height of the subtle chaos these books cause in my life was when my boyfriend's nephews and nieces became entranced by them. These tiny children, all of whom couldn’t read, were screaming and crying fighting over a collection of summer recipes. As their parents quickly lost patience and yelled at them to just share or pick up one of the other many recipe books I had, I was acutely aware how my inability to be a bit rude had the potential to ruin other people’s days as well as my own. A fun day with my boyfriend’s family had turned into world war three all because I didn’t reject a call.

I know you’re probably thinking why not try again now? They can’t ignore me forever, right? But getting anyone on the phone is still a battle.

I have tried cancelling the direct debit. I have considered changing banks completely. But knowing my luck my debt to them will just build up over the years until one day when I try to collect my pension they will track me down with a massive bill which not only includes fifty years of missed payments but interest.

I think of myself at eighty still receiving these culinary cookbooks. Seething about the prices and then being placated by the gorgeous food photography.

When I do see my bank balance struck by this sudden payment, I can’t help but think that maybe the woman who called me wasn’t as worse off as I thought. Maybe she was a raging sadist who loved to convince people to buy useless magazines and cookbooks all filled with information that they could find on Google. Maybe getting screamed at by people with anger issues gave her a crazy adrenaline rush. Or, and this is more likely, maybe she really didn’t care how crappy her job was and my staying on with her simply stopped her from taking her break earlier.

So, in case you have a chronic case of “I have to be polite” like I do. This is the sign. Stop. Hang up the phone. Yes, it’s rude but you’ll live. They’ll live and you will be a richer person for it.

As for me, I will continue to call every week or so but I have kind of resigned myself to my fate. There are worse things I suppose. They could be car magazines.