The Pay Telephones / Meet Bob Dole

So I went to the doctor's office, probably just for a checkup or something. Everything was uneventful, except for the layout of the place. The office was a lot larger than usual, with more rooms and more staff. I didn't pay it much attention, though.

After I'd had my checkup, I was pointed to another small room where I should go to schedule my next appointment. In there, I found a nurse (starched white, hat and everything) and about seven other girls, about my age or younger. Everyone was trying to make an appointment or perhaps be run through triage, but the nurse only spoke Spanish.

Let me clarify that. I knew that the nurse could speak English perfectly, and she wasn't even Hispanic or Spanish or anything. She was just being some kind of deranged pedant, putting on a show of being patient as the girls, in halting high school Spanish, tried to schedule appointments or describe their pains.

So I just snuck out without scheduling another appointment. Too much of a hassle.

Unfortunately, my ride wasn't going to pick me up for another several hours. I guess my ride was taking the Spanish nurse into consideration when he figured out when to pick me up.

I still don't know why I didn't talk to the nurse. I can at least get my meaning across in Spanish, even if I probably do sound like Tarzan.

So, I could either walk home or call my ride prematurely. I decided to start walking home, then call my ride if I got tired. The office was quite a distance from my home.

Once I left the office, I was in a huge parking lot, surrounded by assorted chain stores. There were no trees, and the sun beat down on the whole scene. Outside one of the stores, a grocery or a thrift store, there was a display of advances in telephone technology.

I walked over to the telephones. They were payphones, of a strange design. They were much taller than any standard payphone, and they looked oddly extruded. There was a depression that fit the human body on one side. One was meant to lean into that depression, grab onto the handles, and their holographic image would be broadcast to the person they dialed. I had a pocket full of change, so I decided to give it a try.

I took my position at the telephone's depression and leaned into it. The telephone tipped over, almost horizontally, and came to a stop a few inches from the ground. I guess it was supposed to do that.

I tried to call my ride. I put in a dollar in quarters, and the machine made some beeping and whirring noises. It straightened up and gently let me out. I inspected the telephone again, and found something on the back. There was a product return slot, like in a soda or snack machine, and in it was a little plastic coaster. Above the slot was a sign that explained that the telephone was set on "demo" until holo-phones were more commonplace.

I inspected my coaster. It looked like the little temperature-sensitive coasters one can buy at science museums, hexagonal and black. It was thick black plastic, except for a circular section in the center that was thinner and glistening with an oily sheen. I turned it upside down. The other side was obviously the top. There were little solar cells around the edges and a big blue stylized thumbprint in the center. I pushed the thumbprint with my thumb and a little 3-d holographic me appeared. It looked pretty good; good detail and for some reason I didn't have that passport/student ID/driver's license blank look. It must have been some really advanced technology.

I'd have to remember this. It crossed my mind that my sister Matie would really get a kick out of it, and we could spend an afternoon dressing her up and taking holograms, so she could have a shelf full of them.

I stuck my finger into the hologram again, and pushed the thumbprint (or its general area) again. It didn't necessarily need a thumb to activate it, just a finger, because the hologram disappeared. I put the coaster in my pocket and went looking for a working telephone.

I wandered around the parking lot. I had assumed there would be a standard payphone in a store lobby or right outside a store, but there wasn't. Finally, I decided to go into a store and ask to use the telephone.

I went into a store. It was mostly abandoned, but used to be a hardware store. There were still some signs and shelves up. In the center of the empty store were some tables, folding chairs, and a whole bunch of telephones. I'd estimate that there were about fifty telephones, all beige or black.

There was a man in a suit sitting in front of all the tables, looking expectantly at the telephones. I approached, and saw that it was Bob Dole. I decided that since I didn't vote for him, I should probably pretend not to care who he was. In the dream, I was younger than I am now, so I figured he'd just assume I was a typical shallow teenager. And that he'd let me use the telephone.

I walked up to him and said, "Pardon me, sir, but could I please use one of your telephones? I need to call my ride to get home and there aren't any payphones." Bob Dole looked like nobody had come in all day. He let me use a telephone, but these were pay telephones. They had a coin slot in the mouthpiece. When I put a quarter in, I could see it travel through the cord and into the base, like a snake eating a gerbil.

I called my ride and gave my location. I have no idea who my ride was. I think he said "I'll be there in half an hour," and I said "Half an hour? Okay." So Bob Dole overheard that, and was happy. Finally, someone would pay attention to him!

I couldn't pretend I had to go right then, so I hung around. Dole tried to talk about politics and stuff, but I just nodded politely. I suggested to him that he put a sign up outside, so people would know he was in there. He beamed and said it was a great idea. Then he asked me to help him make one. Since it was nicer inside the building than outside, I agreed.

In the back of the store, in the manager's office, there was a lot of butcher paper, glue, tempera paint and those spastic little grade-school scissors. All kinds of art project stuff. We unrolled a lot of light blue butcher paper -- at least ten yards -- and I used a marker to outline the words "Bob Dole Inside!" I did a very neat job. Bob Dole had made a glue and water solution and very carefully painted inside my lines, then tossed glitter on the letters. He used red and gold glitter, alternating letters.

Since he was busy with that, I made two smaller signs with the same paper and marker. One just said "Bob Dole," the other said, "Please Use Other Door." They were for the doors. I passed those to Bob, and his eyes filled with tears. He said he would have never thought of putting signs on the doors.

The big sign was dry, so I went up to the employee break room. It was a big room above the whole store, with hidden interior windows so they could spy on shoplifters. It was pretty easy to sneak out of the exterior windows up there and hang the sign up on the marquee over where the old sign used to be. When I got back down, Bob had put the signs on the doors, and my ride had showed up in a big yellow Volkswagen.

I said goodbye, and Bob Dole looked sad. I pointed out to him that people were already coming to see him, and he perked right up. He said that if enough people used his telephones, he could have enough money to buy a more permanent sign. More signs would bring in more business, for Bob Dole and his peculiar pay telephones.