Mr. Phone

We called him Mr. Phone. He had small, beady eyes hidden behind thick oval lenses; hair buzzed close to his head but not close enough that you could see the sheen of his scalp; not short enough to make fun of but not tall enough to take notice of. He was thoroughly uninteresting in nearly every way--look away from him in a crowd for a moment and he would vanish.

The one thing that made him unique (maybe it stood out because he was so dull otherwise) was his constant engagement in conversation over his cell phone. Day or night, rain or shine, weekday or weekend, whenever any of us saw him he was talking on or listening to that phone. To be fair, we didn't see him that much. He was always either in his room or at a class, and didn't seem terribly interested in interacting with us.

But whenever we did have the pleasure of seeing him, there was that phone, in his hand, held up to his ear. And even cultural boundaries gave him no mind: once, I was in the restroom, and he unlocked the door, headed directly to one of the stalls, relieved himself, and left (without washing his hands), all while talking to someone on his phone. I don't think we ever figured out who he was talking to so often. The same quality of averageness which permeated every aspect of his being prevented any of us from remembering even the tiniest snippet of his conversations.

I can't say, after all this time Mr. Phone's been out of my life, that I still wonder who it is he's talking to. But I do know that wherever he is, and whatever he's doing, even in the face of every obstacle that life has in store for him, he still speaks on that phone. God bless you, Mr. Phone, and may you remain steadfast in your refusal to give up the one unique thing about you and become just another Mr. Bluetooth.