A telephone with a hand attached, which will be able to caress by remote control, may one day be available, says a US journal on electronics.
The hand may be capable of pointing, feeling, touching, caressing under remote control over a telephone line, the magazine says.
Hands have been attached to our telephone for years. They are not remote controlled but flesh and blood and they are harder to remove than coffee stains.
These hands clutch, clamp, claw, caress and even snatch if confronted by other hands joined or connected or attached to other bodies which in turn are activated and motivated by brains appalled at the time others spend hand-holding on the telephone.
The whole thing gets horribly out of hand and cries of “hands off” and “hand and deliver” have no effect.
My wife is always complaining about how she wants a spare pair of hands. But not this, dear heaven, not this.
But getting back to the matter in hand. Such an attachment to a telephone should be more aggressive.
- It should grab a caller who goes over three minutes by the throat and shake her like a rat.
- It should snatch the receiver (from her hand) and automatically hang up.
- It should give the garrulous teenager a good slap across the bottom.
Maintenance and hygiene of the telephone attachment could pose some problems.
For instance, are we going to have Telecom coming around all the time wanting to wash its hand?
And then there’s the problem of reporting your hand if it malfunctions.
I can picture myself ringing the girl at complaints and saying: “Look I’m having trouble with my hand. It keeps wandering.”
“By the tone of your voice,” she snaps back, “you’re the kind who would.”
The next thing the hand smacks me in the face.
There might be other uses.
When I phone my banker my telephone hand could start wringing itself.
The neighbour rushes over saying his telephone is defective so I lend a hand.
One could fish by remote control. You’d merely use the hand line.
But let’s not be too carried away. Will my daughter now be satisfied to hold hands over the telephone instead of at the drive-in?
There’s the morale factor. If you’re feeling a bit low you can ring a friend and get her to scratch your back.
Someone has suggested get- ting a clenched fist attached to the telephone. Then when some of our more spectacular performers get on it there’d be no show without punch.
I also suggest a foot phone (just for kicks), a rib phone (that’s if you feel like being tickled) and an eyebrow phone (so you can raise something).
There’s no truth in the rumour that someone slipped a diamond ring on a remote-controlled hand and got an engaged signal.
When the telephone bill arrives I’ll be interested to see whether the phone holds its hand out. Everyone else in our house does!
Max Fatchen