Butt-Dialing: The Best Benefit From The Cell Phone Revolution

Somehow while I was right in the middle of chatting with my daughter, my cell phone rang twice and my friend Greg said hello. His greeting carried a !title uncertainty, which was completely justified.

We had worked together for thirty years, enjoying lunches every day and hanging out on occasional weekends. We attended numerous ball games together, went to our respective children's graduation parties, and teamed up for occasional bicycling contests. Since we had both retired, our communication had gone from daily to weekly to perhaps twice a year.

After returning his greeting, I explained that I must have butt-dialed him. He chuckled and admitted that he himself had mistakenly called people, but then we shared a delightful conversation that lasted nearly thirty minutes.

That spontaneous interaction happens to represent one of the best results of cell phones, the accidental dialing to one of your contacts. While I have admittedly experienced a few awkward butt dialiings, the majority have resulted in pleasant, completely unplanned conversations with people with whom I once had been in almost daily contact.

Take for another example Mike, who for five years lived directly across the street from me. Even though he was much younger than I, we shared a love of baseball and biking.

We spoke in person nearly every day, took in several ball games every summer, and rode the bike trails almost every Saturday in the fall. When he got married I was at the wedding, but that commitment caused him to sell his house and move into his new wife's home in the adjacent county.

For a year or so we kept in touch, usually when the Reds began the regular season. After his child was born, the brief contact justifiably dwindled to none.

Yet one day, due to my technological ineptitude, I accidentally called him. After an embarrassed apology, we began catching up with each other's lives. He had recently enjoyed an addition to his family, and he had a new job with better pay and more flexible hours.

Had he participated in Facebook or other social media, I probably might have found out about the new developments in life. Still, reading posts on the Internet does not come close to the joy of speaking one to one with a friend.

Because I am so clumsy when it comes to cell phones, I have numerous other examples. There is one to the guy with whom I once coached our daughters' basketball team, someone I had not seen since our kids had graduated high school. He and I both got a laugh out of my cellular inefficiency, but twenty minutes later I had learned about a car accident that had left him disabled for several months.

One of the most enjoyable feelings in life occurs when you hear an old song come on the radio, which takes you back to a certain age that you have nearly forgotten. That sensation is almost as pleasant as the one you get because of butt-dialing.