I CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER THE NOISE

He had seen her last week in Hawaii, and he was extremely surprised to now see her at the counter ordering a cake. She didn't come down to Chinatown very often, whenever he went to Hawaii she picked him up at the airport. She had a condo over there. But she didn't live in Hawaii all the time. They were old friends. Classmates. He didn't go further into the subject, and the other gentlemen may have realized he shouldn't ask anymore. The third gentlemen was distracted by his new phone. The algorithm kept giving him Maga crap, how did he prevent that?

Apparently, and I'm mentally filing this for possible future use, you need to log into your own youtube account. That way your preferences come up more often. And seeing as I myself never use my cellphone for internet browsing, or anything, really, that may not be quite as useful as it otherwise could have been.

The only thing my cellphone gets used for is barking brusquely in Cantonese. Wai! Nei hai pin go? Nei dim gaai koh ngo? 喂，你係邊個，點解你𠹭我？Hey, who are you, why are you calling me? Because, you see, I never take the accursed device out of the house and it's always spam. Often with an Indian at the other end if a live human being comes on. Which given that they don't recogize the language is rare, it usually hangs up before then.

I am not Indian. I am not Chinese. I am a Dutch American with a bad attitude.
And I enjoy frustrating AI and subcontinental pork.

In case you didn't realize it, I am adept at hanging up mid-sentence. Neither the bookseller nor my apartment mate, or many other friends, habitually carry their cell phones with them, and if we need to communicate with someone further away than the next room, e-mail or insta-message is best. Texting is a total waste of time.

People do send texts to my phone. I look at them days or weeks later, and do not recognize any of those people, also my name is not Martha or Ralph or Kevin. And I'm not bringing the Walters file this morning or any other morning.


I am so glad I missed your call.



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