MY TELEPHONE

While watching a film about an abandoned ranch in southern California, it occurred to me that the house I live in now is different from every other house I have ever occupied in one regard: I no longer own a telephone. In every house I have ever lived in, I had to make an accommodation for an object that was about nine inches wide by ten long, and about inches five deep, weighing three or so pounds. As I look at this house I have to speculate as to where I would put an object like that now. Most likely on my desk in the living room, to my left, so that I would not get tangled up in wire when I answered it. In that space today is a wind-up bull (origin unknown), a small wire wind-up figure (origin unknown), and immediately in front,  Dr. Johnson’s Potpourri of some 4000 of the most Entertaining and Historically Stimulating English Words (a gift, but I am uncertain from whom.)