One Sketch #4: The World's Worst Phone

So today I had my last day in work until after the Easter Holidays. Yay! Nobody was hoe when I got back, so I settled down , made a cappuccino, and picked up a book. Then the phone rang. Now, that's a problem.

You see, our phone is awful. Oh, don't get me wrong, it looks great : -

It's a modern phone styled after an old American payphone from, I guess the 40s/50s. And when we first had it, it was fine. Over the years, though, it has become terrible. It is impossible to get through a call without having to apologise to the caller for having to continually ask them to repeat themselves because what they have said has been completely obscured by a crackle, a squeal, or any one of a bewildering variety of noises.

What made it worse today was that when I could finally make out what the caller was saying, he turned out to be a cold caller. A few years ago I took to telling them that I was the cat whenever a cold caller chanced his/her arm.
For example: -
Caller: Hello. I vant do speeek do Missis . . . .
Me: Missis . . . . not here. Did Mrs. . . . 's cat. My neem is Hero. I like feesh. Do you have feesh? I like meelk. Do you have meelk? : -
- and then every time they spoke I would mention another thing I liked and ask them for it. If you got as far as chicken, they were never going to hang up. Funnily enough, after the first time I did it we didn't have another nuisance call for weeks.

Well, anyway, here's today's verse
Compared to its crackles
Squeaks and squealing
Silence is rather
More appealing.