Can you hear me now?

Ahh, the magical phrase coined by that little Verizon man with black rimmed glasses. Can you hear me now.... that phrase really is magical. I don't know what it is. I could be in the arctic in a cave, no towers for miles and if the person on the other end is having trouble hearing me, then all I have to do is move one or two steps away and say, "Can you hear me now?"

Et voila!

They can hear me! I get a nice clear "Yes" from their end. Kudos to Verizon for being so great, even in the arctic.

There's only one problem. That's ALL that person hears. Because as soon as I diverge from that famed five word sequence, the spell is broken, and the evil Queen Poorreception regains control...

Nothing takes the excitment out of a storytelling like having to say, "What's the last thing you heard?" Cause what's your friend going to do? Paraphrase. And adults don't paraphrase like kids.

If you ask a kid to tell where you left off, they paraphrase but in this excited way -
"The little prince had just fought off the dragon!!!! And he was going through the woods of FEEEEAAAARRRRRRR. And then he came up to a house... a dark dark house..."

You look at the kid with big eyes. "Go on..."

No, when adults pharaphrase they get that monotone voice -
"You walked into the party and he had that girl with him. So you decided to pretend like you didn't see them. But he'd just walked up to you. And then something about a widget maybe? But I don't know, I didn't hear anything after that."

So you start up where your friend tells you you left off, not before taking a minute or so to try to recount what in your story sounded like 'widget'. At any rate, its not the same. Momentum has been lost. The window of opportunity where you have your friend's undivded attention has been closed. So you just quickly wrap up what could have been a great story.

I could possibly have great conversations using only the words, "Can you hear me now"... If I was Chinese and "Can you hear me now" could actually mean 100 different things with a change in intonation. But alas, I am not. So it means just that. Its like some kind of sick joke. Sure Verizon doesn't drop calls. But so what. I think I'd rather have the frigging call dropped so I'm not pouring my heart out to dead air about the ex Derek and his new girlfriend Bridget. Come on Verizon. Pick your battles and drop a call once in a while.