John Mulaney
The Phone Used to Be a Wood Box with a Thing on It
Famous people are often rude because they're used to getting things really quickly. I bet a lot of us are pretty polite. But as soon as we get things quickly, we start to get ruder and ruder. Look at technology, it’s faster than ever and we're ruder than ever. People walk around on the phone now, “Hello? You still there? Lost him.” And that's it. No follow-through with that guy. Fifty years ago, if you were on the telephone with your friend and suddenly the line just went dead, that meant your friend was murdered. The phone used to be a big deal. It was a long, polite process. Back in the 1940s, the phone was like a wood box with a thing on it. I don’t know. It had its own room. You'd go, “That's the phone's room!” And it was expensive. You'd wait all week to make your call. “It's almost Tuesday!” And then you'd take the cup on the string or whatever. There weren't even numbers. You’d just go, “Hello? Anyone? Anyone in the world?” Then you’d go, “Operator, ring me Neptune 5-117.” And the operator was a real person that you had to be nice to. She'd be like, “One moment, please. I’m putting wires into a board filled with holes to move the voices around, 'cause it is the '40s.” And it took like 90 minutes. Now people just drive around screaming at their phones like, "Call home!" “Calling the mobile for Tom.” Not fucking Tom! [imitating Mick Jagger] "Not funny!"