If you'd like to leave a message, don't
By Alex Beam, Globe Columnist  |  June 7, 2005

Finally, Mr. Fussy has a cellphone.

Curiously, no one has called.

Could that be because Mr. Fussy hasn't given anyone the number?

All things in good time is Mr. Fussy's maxim. Now that he has cast himself
headlong into the technological thicket of the late 20th century, he won't be
stampeded into any unnecessary telephonic communications. That would mean almost
all of them.

The primary attraction of cellphones was that everyone else had them; Mr. Fussy
benefited from technological herd immunity. Why did he need one if he could
importune the person seated next to him for a quick call? It was like the good
old days of smoking -- you could always bum a cigarette when you needed
one. (Although asking for a ''charcoal-filtered" Lark was admittedly an
embarrassment.)

What was the point of cellphones, Mr. Fussy wondered, except to hector your
children when they had fled your field of vision, attempting to have fun? ''Be
home by ten o'clock!" As if. Or to dial in, eunuchlike, from the supermarket
aisle to inform one's spouse that the flat-leafed Italian parsley hadn't
arrived. Would curly-leafed be OK?

Mr. Fussy's college-age son had a cellphone, and Mr. Fussy always looked forward
to their biweekly conversations. ''Dad! Hi! I'm lg uyhert BRRRZR RRZKKKXXX
XXXCKSTLAK" What a marvelous advertisement for this must-have gizmo! Mr. Fussy's
neighbors call him from his own driveway to see if he's at home. The doorbell
must be too ''old school."

Why did he buy the thing? Because he seemed to spend most of his time being
unavailable, rarely to be found in his windowless work burrow, not often at home
-- where exactly? One of Mr. Fussy's bosses called him the ''elusive Mr. Fussy,"
not taken as a compliment.

Well, that was the point, wasn't it? If they could find you, they could make you
work. So what if Mr. Fussy was cowering in his eco-friendly Prius -- the
old-school Prius, the one that drives, not stalls -- in the Heartland mall,
perusing the Templeton Foundation's refreshingly slow-paced magazine, In
Character: A Journal of Everyday Virtues? Given Mr. Fussy's job description,
that would qualify as ''work," broadly construed. No one would call reading
Templeton Foundation propaganda ''play," that is for sure.

Now Mr. Fussy's masters would have a number to dial -- the number of the
permanently switched-off cellphone on the seat next to him. It will be like one
of those ''help lines" the big petrochemical companies set up after a plant
explosion has incinerated a no-account town in the Louisiana delta. Bereaved
families feel better just dialing the number. Alas, no one will answer.

One of Mr. Fussy's greatest disappointments with the George W. Bush
administration was the national Do Not Call Registry, announced with such
fanfare in 2002. He listed both his home and work phone numbers with the
Registry, and yet family members, colleagues, even friends and casual
acquaintances continued to call him. Was this yet another promise on which the
Republicans had failed to deliver?

Naturally, Mr. Fussy researched the cellphone market exhaustively before signing
up for a plan. Just last month, he spotted an article in The New York Times
about a Samsung cellphone that ''does a lot of things, just not very well." That
sounded like a phone Mr. Fussy could relate to. In theory, this $500 appliance
could take sharp photos, record 90 minutes' worth of videos, play TV shows, and
even transcribe dictated speech. It also included an alarm clock, a calendar
with audible reminders, and an MP3 music player.

Mr. Fussy ended up spending one-fiftieth of that amount for a phone that
performs almost none of those functions. Unfortunately, it can receive telephone
calls, but only when it is turned on. Figuring out how to turn it on should
consume the remainder of the year. Here is an example of the easy-to-understand
instructions for using the calendar function: ''In standby mode, press the left
soft key Menu, then press 5JKL, 1.-' for Today. You're prompted to enter a New
Event."

Mr. Fussy might be willing to give you his new cellphone number. But then you
might call him, and that would defeat the entire purpose of the exercise.

Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His e-dress is beam@globe.com.