The Landline
A Top Ten Firm is Frustrated Their Gen Z Staff Don’t Know How to Use Phones to Speak to Other Humans
— Going Concern Headline, April 1, 2025
He was a tough guy. About 25 years old, the wiry suspect sat in the interrogation room of the police station, staring out into space. He was accused of doing a bad thing—not too bad, but bad enough to be there. Across the table was the interrogator. A large, dark-skinned man in his early 40s, he was in good-cop mode. He preferred being in good-cop mode, but was beginning to see that was going to change.
“You know what you did, Luke. It’s best to own up to it now. It only gets worse,” the examiner advised.
“I don’t owe you anything,” Luke responded defiantly. “I’m not saying nothing else.”
The interrogator sighed. He knew that Luke would eventually talk, even demand to confess. He knew that his secret weapon never failed, but still, it was a lot of trouble going through the steps, a procedure that really messed with the minds of suspects. For all his outward appearance of being tough, he genuinely did not like going medieval to get his confessions. Unfortunately, the suspects, particularly those of Generation Z, gave him no choice.
The interrogator clicked the intercom and said, “Bring it in.”
A uniformed police officer, carrying a black tray, came in and placed the tray on the table. On it was a strange device attached to a trailing wire. Beige in color, it was oddly shaped, with some sort of rod on top of it with cups of some sort on both ends. There were twelve buttons with numbers on them and tiny little letters. The suspect didn’t know what this was, but its mysterious presence still filled him with dread.
“What is, uh, this…” stuttered the suspect.
The interrogator cleared his throat to prepare his deeper vocal cords.
“It is a landline,” he said somberly.
The suspect had heard of landlines before, but dismissed them as legends, scary stories invented by Boomers to frighten the young. According to the folklore, they were in every home in the olden days and were attached to the wall. He knew it couldn’t be true. How could something so common exist and actually be attached to the wall? It just didn’t make sense!
However, here it was, the legend, right in front of him.
“You’re making this up. Landlines aren’t real. They’re made up.”
“Oh no, my good friend. It’s quite real.” Then to add drama to the situation, he suddenly proclaimed, “Behold!”
Right on cue, the landline made this horrendous bell sound. It rang and rang. The interrogator sat impassively and observed.
“What’s it doing? What’s that sound? It’s like bells, but bells I’ve never heard before!”
“Maybe you should pick it up,” the interrogator suggested.
The suspect, very tentatively, placed his hands on the side of the phone and lifted it off the table cautiously. It rang in his hand, and he could feel the device vibrate with each ring. It was absolutely demonic. Horrified, the suspect dropped the phone on the table, where it continued to ring.
This was par for the course as far as the interrogator was concerned. He knew the Generation Z suspect was oblivious to the idiom “pick it up” and would pick up the entire device rather than answer it. This never got old.
“What I mean is, pick up the handset and talk into it.”
“Handset?”
“Yes, this thing here.” The interrogator pointed to the handset. “It comes off.”
“I thought it was attached,” said the suspect. “Why does it come apart?”
“So you can talk into it.”
The phone continued to ring.
“The ringing, the ringing, it won’t stop! What is going on?” demanded Luke.
“If you pick it up, it will stop ringing.”
Caught in a paradox of either having to touch the phone again or listen to the ringing forever, the suspect was momentarily stymied. But the ringing was the greater of the two evils, so Luke picked up the handset.
“Hold it to your ear,” the interrogator said.
“You mean have it touch my head?!”
“Yes.”
Shaking with terror, he gingerly held it to his ear. Freaked out by the close proximity, he froze, but was glad the incessant ringing had stopped. He then noticed something about the buttons.
“I see letters,” he said.
Luke then tried to text using the landline’s push buttons. He pressed 4 twice for H and I, but heard terrible electronic sounds every time he pressed the buttons.
“It won’t text! It won’t text!” he exclaimed.
“It doesn’t text,” the interviewer explained patiently. “You talk into it.”
“Talk into it?!” Luke replied. “That’s inhuman! No one should talk nowadays.” In a desperate attempt, he tried to text, but only more crazed electronic sounds poured forth, further increasing Luke’s anxiety.
“Talk, Luke. Talk.”
“But don’t you know, when you talk, words leave your mouth and are out forever with no way to delete words…”
“Talk, talk!”
“…what if I want to rephrase with Claude? How can I do that if my words are in the air…”
“Talk, Luke. You gotta talk!”
“…and no emojis!” Luke was beside himself with terror. “No emojis to use, none at all. No grinning face, no grinning squinting face, not even an upside-down face! Arghh!”
Luke let out a primal scream and tossed the phone on the table where it landed with a plastic clatter and a dull, truncated ding.
“I confess! I confess!” Luke yelled. “I did it! I did all of it! Just take it away! Take it away!”
Luke covered his face and began to weep uncontrollably.
Calmly and methodically, the interrogator took the phone and handed it to the attending policeman to be removed. He looked at the wreckage that was Luke. Why do they always do this? Why don’t they ever cooperate? If only he talked upfront, the relic could remain in the evidence locker, forever silent and soon forgotten.
