Sanitary Payphone Wrapper

Here is something any payphone user can appreciate. A sanitary wrapper for a public telephone, thoughtfully placed by a fellow payphone user:

Of course there is no telling what microbial horrors lie within that shared scrap of napkin. Bed Bugs? West Nile Virus? Anthrax? Fleas and ticks? Certainly a fresh splotch of perspiration would be no surprise in this hot, hot summer.

I have seen these sanitary wrappers on payphones before. I imagine that if cell phones did not exist and payphones were as commonly used today as 20 years ago then this selectively germ phobic city would have passed ordinances mandating that payphone owners provide within their payphone enclosures a freshly-stocked dispenser of germicidal napkins or other forms of disease-repelling fabric.

One imagines a grading system for payphones, in which city workers inspect payphones at random and slap letter grades on the devices.

About a year ago the city introduced a letter-grade system for restaurants, pubs, and eateries. Some paying customers regard the grades as sacred and beyond reproach, while others (such as myself) dismiss the letters and the process of their assignments as useless, sycophantic bureaucracy.

I, for one, got food poisoning earlier this year. After 11 hours of barfing like a force of nature and later recovering from the episode I noticed that the restaurant where I got the sickness had received an A on its sanitary cleanliness grade. In my mind the grades were already useless (they communicate nothing that you need to know about the food you eat there) and the incident of getting sick at an allegedly pristine establishment did nothing to open my mind to change.

One imagines that once the city has nano-managed its way into every eatery and dining establishment and put as many such places out of business as possible then they might move on to lower hanging fruit: public payphones. It is hard to imagine much public indignation or protest at a municipal announcement that the city would shut down as many payphone as it could based on mysterious but unassailable health criteria intended to save the planet, or at least sustain it for another few weeks.

Of course the “sanitary” rating would be based largely on non-sanitary issues: presence of a dial tone, functioning of the coin input and coin return slots, presence of illegal advertisements and signs, and the crystal-clear quality of the calls. These and other functional behaviors would contribute to a “sanitary” payphone rating in the same way paperwork and miscommunication can give an otherwise passable diner a C on its letter grade.

I hate to say it, though, but even without criteria for cleanliness and sustainability of the planet I think that most New York City payphones today would get an F.

I have had some troubles lately with my cell phone. Correction: I have had troubles lately with my MOBILE COMPUTING DEVICE, A POCKET-SIZE MULTIMEDIA GADGET MORE POWERFUL THAN THE COMPUTERS USED BY NASA TO LAND MEN ON THE MOON, A POWERFUL DEVICE ONCE UNIMAGINABLE OUTSIDE OF SCIENCE FICTION AND WHICH HAPPENS TO INCLUDE CELL PHONE FUNCTIONALITY.

A few weeks ago the mobile device started pocket-dialing, pocket-e-mailing, and pocket-God-knows-what-else to a point where I actually hesitate to turn it on for fear of who it might call or what it might do.

Under this circumstance I found myself looking for a working payphone in midtown. The increasingly familiar “NO DIAL TONE” sticker placed on about one-third of all payphones was not an auspicious beginning to my quest, which resulted in my attempting to use a dozen payphones before giving up. Only one of those dozen phones appeared to work, with a functioning dial tone and a working coin input slot.

Alas, I dialed the number of a person I needed to reach, but a payphone robot voice told me that the number was invalid. The number is not invalid, but I was allowed to try again. I dialed the number again, as carefully as possible, certain I got every digit right, and the same response came: invalid number. I dialed with and without the leading 1, but it made no difference. I hung up (the phone kept my quarter, by the way) and I dialed the number assigned to the telephone portion of my mobile supercomputing device. The device itself is having troubles but I know that the phone number is valid. Alas, the only working payphone I could find in New York that day disagreed, telling me once again that the number I dialed could not be reached. I then tried a toll-free number, and the same bland message came back. This payphone regarded every number as invalid.

My experience is mostly anecdotal, of course. It is not based on a systematic study or any kind of methodology except for the real scenario of really needing to find a working payphone, and failing miserably in that quest. Nevertheless, based on this and other experiences the last few weeks, it seems that you are in a pretty sorry spot if you need to find a working payphone in this town. I hope the situation is better in other cities.

This sanitarily-wrapped payphone is one of three phones at the corner of 47th Street and 6th Avenue in Manhattan.

I believe that the gentleman on the right is talking only into the thick, viscous summer air. I tried to use that payphone moments before him and, as usual, it did not work. I have seen this phenomenon before, and I know not what it might be called: I see someone pick up a payphone which I know has no dial tone and does not work. The person puts a quarter in, dials a number, and waits, mumbling words into the phone in anticipation of a connected phone call. After several moments the person slams down the phone, perhaps never even realizing that the phone does not work.