You Had Me At Hello

Let’s take a brief break from our infinite scrolling of toxified social media-infused rage bait and return to a simpler time when, if you wanted to know something, you could just pick up the phone and ask someone—when any of your queries came with a pre-gameshow version of the lifeline, “I’d like to phone a friend.” Auburn University perfected this ideal version of the help-desk model 70 years ago and, amazingly, the students manning the landline are still on call. What kinds of questions do they answer? Here’s one example: “If you died on the operating table and they declared you legally dead and wrote out a death certificate and everything, but then you came back to life, what are the legal ramifications? Do you technically no longer exist? Do you have to be declared undead by a judge?” But the questions can be about anything. While the large stacks of reference books have been replaced by a few computers, two things have remained the same. The phone number. And the fact that a human will take your call. Oxford American: The Alabama Landline That Keeps Ringing. “During the day, the phones ring about ten to fifteen times an hour. Most of the calls are from the general public. Occasionally, an Auburn student calls to ask about basketball tickets or whether their brown jacket ended up in the lost and found. As classes wrap up for the afternoon and the sun sets, the big windows that filter sunlight turn into mirrors. Calls become less frequent, so students working at the desk settle into their homework. It’s a perk of the job. By nine o’clock, the student center is quiet. That’s when people like Beulah call…”

+ After you’re done talking to Beulah, you can check out this story to ease yourself back into our modern reality. Mother feeling lonely? Pay for an AI app to give her a call.