The Nightstand Phone or Not?

JENN McKINLAY: I was soundly scolded the other evening and I’m not sure how I feel about it. Why was I lectured? I’m so glad you asked.

Hub and I do not keep our cell phones in our bedrooms and we do not have a landline. Subsequently, if someone calls late at night, we have to stumble to the kitchen and check to see who it is and why would they be calling after 9 PM?! Seriously, the audacity! As I was complaining about this to a Hooligan, it suddenly turned into a lecture on how I’m old and should keep my phone nearby. (Picture Jenn glowering here). I was assured that this stance was for safety reasons, but it just felt rude to me. 

So, how about it, Reds? Do you keep your cell phone on your nightstand or do you keep it elsewhere to ensure a good night’s sleep?

HALLIE EPHRON: My kids say the same thing, but I’ve got more than a few years on you, Jenn. So I’m just glad they’re looking out for me.  

No land line here, either, and overnight I keep my cell on my night stand with the sound muted. You can designate “emergency callers” and (I think) if they call the phone’s supposed to ring. Or that’s how I think it works. Have not tested it. Yet. And I think it’s sweet and adorable that your son worries about being able to reach you if he’s worried about what you’ve gotten up to.

HANK PHILLIPI RYAN: Totally keep my phone on the nightstand. Cannot imagine not doing that. 

We still do have a landline, since if you call 911 from a cellphone, it does NOT know where you are, but the landline does. (That’s why dispatchers now say “911–Where’s your emergency” instead of “what’s your emergency.”)

Oh, in every way I think it’s important to have the phone nearby.

LUCY BURDETTE: Yes phone on the nightstand, set up as Hallie described. I use it for my bedtime stories–like THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS, or lately, listening to a Jenny Colgan book that I’ve already read. That way I don’t have to pay attention too much or worry about what I’ll miss. 

PS we don’t have a landline either

PPS sometimes I do get in trouble by doomscrolling because it’s so convenient, but I lecture myself sternly about that…

RHYS BOWEN: my phone lies charging beside the bed every night and the first thing I do when I wake in the morning is pick it up! I confess to addiction. We still have a land line that John insists on keeping. And if I forget to take off my Apple Watch before bed it shakes me to remind me to get up and move at 3 am 

Lucy, I also listen to Calm bedtime stories when I can’t sleep. 

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Absolutely plugged in on the nightstand! I have to put ointment in my eyes at night so listen to audiobooks to go to sleep. I do not give in to the temptation to doomscroll. I silence the ringer. We do still have a “landline” number, but it’s actually VOIP (internet phone) so I don’t know if it identifies us to 911. I guess I should ask my techie/ex-dispatcher husband.

And, like Rhys, I confess to checking the phone first thing in the morning instead of doing something positive like meditating. In my defense, I usually check the weather and read the blog!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I’m midway between the yes phone and no phone positions. I do keep my phone on my nightstand (I don’t listen to anything except ambient noise on my Alexa, but I do like to unwind with a few rounds of Ultimate Jewels.) However, I always turn it off, unless I’ve got reason to think one of my kids might need to get in touch with me - for instance, when Virginia is traveling back and forth from Europe. When it’s on, it’s on Do Not Disturb with the select callers feature; as you might imagine, the select callers are my three children.

I used to have it on more frequently, but to be perfectly blunt, all the older relatives I might need to know about in an emergency have already died! My sister and brother might want to tell me about an issue in their families, but they wouldn’t need me in the middle of the night - and honestly, neither do my adult offspring. And I REALLY value my sleep!

We dropped the landline back in, I don’t know, 2010? Out here in the heavily forested countryside, the phone lines would go out as frequently as the electricity. My cell is more reliable, especially since I have a constantly-charged battery pack.

JENN: Maybe it's because I'm a child of the eighties, where we were punted outside and told not to return until we heard my dad whistle but I frequently leave the house without my phone, too. Shocking, I know!!! I just don't feel like I need to be in touch with everyone all the time. Is it just me?

Your turn, Readers! Cell phone on the nightstand, yeah or nay?

We've Got Your Number

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Happy back to school (notebooks!). Happy back to work (progress!). Happy end of summer (sweaters!). Happy everything.   And what’s your must-have item for all these great beginnings? 

Yup. Your cell phone.

The brilliant and wonderful Laura DiSilverio has been a treasured friend of mine for—gee, I don’t know how long. She’s a retired Air Force intelligence officer (is anyone ever retired from that?) and a devoted mom and wife and an astonishingly prolific and successful author (ooh, and see below for an amazingly generous giveaway of her newest CLOSE CALL!) 

 But. Up until very recently, she didn’t even…

Well, I’ll let her tell you.  And, because it’s back to school after all, here’s a quiz!

appy back to school. happy end of summer, happy back ot work, happy everything.

 Close Call

          by Laura DiSilverio

Most of us have them. Some of us think we couldn't live without them. Some of us wish we could chuck them down the nearest sewer grate. What am I talking about? Cell phones, of course.

In my new release, CLOSE CALL, my heroine, Sydney, picks up the wrong phone and stumbles on a plot to assassinate a Congressman. Since a cell phone plays such a central role in the book, I thought it might be fun to do a little cell phone trivia quiz on JRW today. For instance, did you know that the first commercially available cell phone came out in 1984 and cost almost $4,000 dollars? That's a long dang time ago and makes the latest iPhone look cheap!

Guzzle some caffeine now and put on your thinking caps. Free copies of CLOSE CALL to everyone (okay, max of five winners) who gets 100% (without cheating). I'm counting on your integrity while taking the quiz and reporting your scores! 

Answers on the comments page.

We'll start with some matching. 

Match the number in the first column with the fact it goes with in the second column.

1. 340,000                     A. Percent of mobile phone malware aimed at Android users

2. 18                             B. Number of iPhones sold every day in 2012

3. 250,000                  C. Number of times the avg person unlocks her Smartphone each day

4. 110                                    D. Number of cell phones dropped in UK toilets every year

5. 100,000                    E. Percent more bacteria on cell phones than toilet handles

6. 99                             F. Number of separate patents for technologies in your Smartphone

Now for some true/false.

7. More people in the world have cell phones than have toilets. True or false?

8. Scientists have invented a way of charging mobile phones using urine. True or false?

And we'll finish with a couple of multiple choice.

9. Who invented the mobile phone?

         a) Anderson Cooper

         b) Martin Cooper

         c) Cooper Cronk

         d) Alexander Graham Bell

10. In what country is mobile phone throwing an official sport?

         a) Finland

         b) Ghana

         c) New Zealand

         d) All of the above

Tell us how you did (if you want to) on the comments page. 

Otherwise, when did you get your first cell phone? (I confess that I didn't get a Smartphone until this year.)

 Are you one of those people who suffer from nomophobia, the fear of being out of mobile phone contact, or are you just as happy to leave your phone at home?  

What's your biggest pet peeve about cell phones?

CLOSE CALL comes out in two days. Preorder now! 

HANK: Oh, dear, don’t even ask me. I actually, seriously, get nervous if I can’t find my phone on the first pawing through my purse. I know this is bad.  I am trying to calculate how often I unlock my cell phone each day, And I can’t. 

But hey, Reds and readers, how about you?

About Laura:
A retired Air Force intelligence officer, Laura DiSilverio is the national bestselling author of 19 mystery, suspense, and YA novels (including the Lefty- and Colorado Book Award-finalist Swift Investigations series, the Readaholics Book Club series, and the Mall Cop series). Her standalone suspense novel, The Reckoning Stones,was a Library Journal Pick of the Month and won the Colorado Book Award for Mystery in 2016. Incubation, the first book of her young adult dystopian trilogy debuted in April to rave reviews. A Past President of Sisters in Crime, she pens articles for Writer’s Digest, and teaches writing in various fora. She plots murders and parents teens in Colorado, trying to keep the two tasks separate.

CLOSE CALL

Living through the media shaming of a political sex when she was in college, Sydney Ellison fears notoriety above all. So when she stumbles onto a plot to assassinate a senator, she resists telling the police. Before she can make herself do the right thing, the hit man tracks her down and kills her fiancé.  Now a murder suspect and a killer's target, Sydney needs help. She reluctantly enlists the aid of an investigator, the estranged sister who betrayed her fifteen years earlier. Sydney must overcome her distrust and put all she has worked for on the line to stop the hit man and his employer before more people die.

“DiSilverio’s excellent plotting in her stand-alone thriller will keep readers on the edge of their seats rooting for Sydney to triumph. A treat for Megan Abbott fans.” (Library Journal, starred review)

Call Us..Maybe

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: When the phone rings, what do you do?

I yell at it.

Don't call me! I say. I'm busy. Busy--at dinner, or reading, or busy writing, or busy doing nothing. Having my life. And I don't wanna talk. And if it's bad news, all the more reason.

I'm sorry, I know it sounds rude, and even cranky, and after all the phone is a wonderful invention, and when we need it, we need it.

And I always remember the movie A Thousand Clowns, when Jason Robards' character would answer with: "Is it someone with good news or money? No?" And then hang up. Perfect.

But a new study just came out that says people don't like to talk on the phone anymore. I guess I'm a reflection of the zeitgeist.

When I was a teenager, the phone was this wonderful thing--guys were going to call (sometimes they didn't, but that was because my phone was probably broken, or my stupid sister was on it and so they got a busy signal and then they forgot to call back). In my twenties, when I lived in Washington DC and worked for Rolling Stone and the US Senate, I--really!--had an actual service who answered the phone for me and took messages a la Doris Day. And she was great--"Yes, he called!" she'd say, when I called in for my messages. (And she could give different answers to different people--(If Keith calls, I'd say, tell him I'll be home at 10, and it's okay to call late.)

Then the advent of answering machines, and their good-bad reality--you could never say you'd missed a call, right? Because you hadn't.

Anyway, I'll admit, my days of wanting to chat on the phone are over. Over! And if you want to find me, email. How about you, Reds? Do you like to talk on the phone? When the phone rings--what do you do?

RHYS BOWEN: I confess to chatting on the phone for hours with my three daughters, also to my brother in Australia. It's great to hear their voices. Much more personal than an e-mail. However it has always amazed me the way people will drop everything when the phone rings. You are having a conversation and in mid sentence when their phone rings. "I have to answer that," they say and suddenly they are talking to someone else. How rude is that? Doesn't it imply that I am not as important as the person on the phone?

HANK: Rhys! Absolutely. Or when you're at the counter and the store clerk stops helping you and answers the phone. Sigh.

RHYS: And there is the other phone-hating experience when the person in the seat behind me on the bus/train/plane spills out the intimate details of their life loudly into the cell phone. "No, Stanley, I will not have sex with you tonight!"
I wish I could get up the courage to say, "Do we care?"

JAN BROGAN:  I agree Hank, the phone at night seems to be a special intrusion - probably because I'm tired and have used up my communication skills for the day. But I still jump for the phone if it's one of my kids. And I have certain friends with whom I enjoy the occasional long phone conversation - but they are rare. And then, has anyone else noticed a trend of certain friends migrating to your cell phone? I find myself doing it to, for some reason I can't explain, I have stopped calling certain people's landlines and now communicate with these special few only by cell phone.

And then there's my texting buddies...a couple of my friends are hilarious in text, but that's another blog.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: It's so weird, isn't it? When I was a teenager, I got my OWN phone line and it was the most exciting thing ever!! (My parents ran their business from home and didn't want me tying up the business phones.) Now, although we actually do still have a land line, it's VOIP, and I NEVER talk on it. If people want to talk to me, they call my cell, and I don't answer that unless I know who's calling from the ID. Phone calls from strangers seems to have become the equivalent of a strange person ringing your doorbell. It feels like a real invasion of privacy.

I do still have friends and family I like to talk to, either on my cell or on Skype, but I also have friends (and family) that almost entirely text. My daughter never answers her phone. If I want to talk to her, I have to text her and say, "Will you please call me?"

HALLIE EPHRON: This is taking me back. The first phone I remember was a party line, and you didn't have to dial an area code: CRestview 57146. Now that's a phone number with personality.

 Anyone remember the wonderful play/movie Bells Are Ringing - the main character was someone who answered phones at Susanswerphone (pronounced: SuesAnsaPhone). The wonderful Judy Holliday immortalized the lead role.

"Ding ding ding went the trolly. Clang clang clang went the bell. Zing zing zing went my heartstrings. From the moment I saw him I fell...!"

I always think when the phone rings it's a movie deal. Needless to say I am often disappointed.

HANK: But not always, right, Hallie? :-)

ROSEMARY HARRIS: When the phone rings I do nothing . That's not true. Sometimes I yell "you get it, all my relatives are dead." I know.....grim, but I am a mystery writer. I've never been one of those gals who loved to yak on the phone "with a pound and a half of cream upon my face."

But I do love Bells are Ringing....did I ever mention that Paula Holliday is a tiny homage to Judy Holliday?

LUCY BURDETTE: Oh Hank, I had an answering service too, when I had my private psychotherapy practice. You had to be available and cell phones were in their infancy. But I was not so lucky in the ladies I had answering--they could bungle things in an instant...or not call you with an emergency...or call in the middle of the night with an appointment time change...

Funny you should say that answering machines mean we never miss a call. John and I realized this week that though we have an answering machine and two cell phones, we also have Comcast answering service. So we have in fact missed HUNDREDS of calls in the past year, because A we didn't realize we had it, and B, we wouldn't have know how to access the messages anyway. Hmmm, I guess the movie moguls moved on to someone else with their big deals...

HANK: Oh, that is the best, Roberta...amazing. Did you ever discover that you missed anything? And if not--doesn't that prove the point?  (And I was UPtown 3 2768.)

How about you? (And I'm sorry if I put "Call Me Maybe in your head…) Do you like to talk on the phone? Or…do you ignore it?