#oneaday, Day 269: Things To Do While Waiting For The Phone To Ring

Of all the items of technology the human race has ever invented, the humble phone is surely one which has the greatest hold over our lives. It can make us drop what we’re doing and run off somewhere. It can make us laugh, make us cry, make us scared. And it can make us wait. Wait for hours.

You might be waiting for the results of a job interview. An STD test. A loved one’s driving test. You might be waiting for a special person to call. You might be hoping that someone from your place of work doesn’t call because you skived off today and you think someone might have seen you on your lunch break. You might be waiting for a utility company to “call you back” with the results of an enquiry you made six months ago.

In short, you could be waiting for lots of things. Which means you could be spending an awfully long time sitting and staring at your phone, particularly if you’re kicking yourself that you gave the person you’re expecting to call you back your landline number. Because who the hell uses landlines any more anyway? Mobile’s where it’s at. With a mobile phone you don’t have to sit and stare at the phone, willing it to ring. Of course, in practice all that happens is you tend to sit on the couch with your mobile nearby instead of near the phone table. Because you don’t dare go anywhere in case you miss an important phone call. And heaven forbid if you ever have to answer an important phone call while you’re engaged in toilet activity of the sitting-down variety. (“Is that an echo?” they’ll say. “Where are you?” “In a cave,” you’ll reply, a little too quickly. “A cave with a mobile mast on top of it.”)

So what to do while you’re waiting for the phone to ring? It can’t be anything which you have to commit to, because you might have to drop everything at a moment’s notice to go and answer the phone call. It can’t be anything that gets your hands dirty, because no-one likes picking up a phone with dirty hands. And it can’t possibly be anything which requires you to go outside, because then other people might hear you discussing your itchy parts with the nurse.

So, here are five suggestions.

1. Pair up your socks.

You’ve been meaning to do it for months. And you haven’t. So instead of sitting staring into space, why not make a start on it? Pairing up your socks is a job that you can easily leave unfinished and go back to, months later sometimes. Hence, it is an eminently waiting-for-phone-call-friendly activity. Experienced professionals with cordless phones can even continue pairing their socks while they are on the phone.

2. Play a casual game.

This is what casual games like Bejeweled, Peggle and the like were made for. Playable in short bursts, easy to jump out of at a moment’s notice if you need to and actually fun for those few minutes you’re waiting, they also give your brain a bit of a workout. Unless it’s Farmville, in which case all you’re working out is your clicking finger. Moo.

3. Play “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” on Wikipedia.

Here’s how this works. Pick two completely disparate topics. Open the Wikipedia page for one. Using six clicks or less, you must navigate your way to the second topic using only the hyperlinks within the Wiki articles.

4. Bleach the toilet.

You’ve been complaining for weeks that the toilet stinks, so go and squirt some bleach down it. This takes a matter of seconds. And if the phone rings once you’ve bleached it, it’ll be time to flush by the time you’re off the phone again.

5. Make me a coffee.

Well go on. Don’t just sit there.