Far Out Phones
In 1973, Martin Cooper had a brilliant idea – to invent a phone without a cord or wires. His invention has changed history, adding to the information revolution and making the lives of many people easier. Here is the actual conversation in which Martin divulges his amazing concept for the first time:
“Hey man, get this. I just had this idea. Wanna hear it?” I said to my friend Leaves.
“Yeah, Marty, lay it on me,” said Leaves.
“Alright, well you know how at the movies and in school and stuff you're supposed to be all quiet?”
“Yeah – like the doctor's office.”
“Yeah, well, don't you wish we could have some way of being really loud and annoying at all those places while having people still respect us?”
“Yeah, man, but that's just a dream - a wonderful, implausible dream...like pizza with cheese in the crust.”
“That's what I thought, too, but then it hit me! What if we could have phones that didn't have cords attached...so you could talk to people from anywhere?”
“Sounds like my dealer would want that, man. But I don't think other cats would...just wouldn't be groovy.”
“I hear that - that's what I thought at first, but then I realized that everyone thinks that they're that important! And there's just some stuff that people aren't going to want to wait until after class to talk about.”
“You're right, man, and when they have flying cars in a few years, people are gonna want a phone with them all the time.”
“Yeah, man. We could market it as a safety or convenience thing. Then, when everybody buys them, people like us will be free to talk as loudly as we want in the movies!”
“Right on. But do you think people will really let that slide? It seems really rude.”
“Well I think, in the future, things will be moving so fast that people won't actually listen to performers...they'll just be talking to people on their portable phones telling people about the show they're at. And they'll be able to tell their friends about the ending of the movie they're at so that they won't even have to go see it! What a time to be alive!”
“Groovy, man. What you gonna call them?”
“I was thinkin' Foxy Fones or somethin'. A name like that would be timeless.”
“That's pretty solid, but you should just call them 'cell phones,' cuz it'll just be another way The Man can watch over us and control our every move. And somethin' like that is gonna have to be huge, so it'll be like you're surrounded by a cell whenever you're using it!”
“Whoa...mellow out, man. I hope that someday Foxy Fones will be as small as about two hundred hacky sacks sewn together. It won't be like a cell...it'll be like a two-year old spy hanging on your back. But I like the name, man. We'll be able to let The Man know that we know what's comin' to us. We know they'll try to use them as cells, but we won't let them!”
And so, the blessing of cellular phones was introduced to the world shortly thereafter, and society was vastly improved. Thanks to Mr. Cooper, we have been given the freedom to talk on the phone during the climax of play in order to figure out where we're meeting after the play. This, among other innovations, has made our lives infinitely better.