Chatty Chic

By Stephanie Dray

If an alien culture landed on earth they would think that we were slaves kept on a tether by little ringing, beeping and vibrating boxes. After all, don’t grown adults jump up and run when a beeper starts vibrating in their pocket? Don’t teenagers seem to have telephones growing from their ears? Telephones ring in theaters and in stores, and people actually answer them, no matter how busy they might be at the time. People have loud conversations into mobile phones in their cars or just walking down the street.

We’ve all become part of a massive gabbing organism. Like worker bees, we can’t get too far from the hive without quickly returning to share our news! So, if we’re going to chat, we might as well chat in style. And these days we have more clever options than ever for our telephony décor!

For the techie in all of us, there’s Verizon’s super CT 250 Caller ID Telephone. Priced at about $120, this phone not only enables you to use caller-id, but also gives you lots of other goodies such as repeat redialing, call waiting, three way calling, call blocking and more. The CT 250 is just Verizon’s touted top of the line; you can get a cheaper caller-id phone from AT&T or your local electronics store if you’re careful.

But who needs techno-phones if you can have kitsch! Verizon even offers a few novelty phones – like their Walt Disney line. The Mickey Mouse phone rings with Mickey’s voice. Mickey shouts out oh so clever little phrases like, “Oh boy, a phone call!” There’s no need to limit yourself to mice either. There’s also the official Walt Disney Goofy phone. Goofy answers your calls with custom voice “rings” in phrases like, “Did you hear ringing?” Verizon sells a phone that contains a replica of Winnie the Pooh with Piglet too. All these Disney phones will run you about $120 and require batteries, but hey, they’ll add a truly sophisticated air to any room.

You don’t need to rely on the local Telephone Company to buy fancy phones. Clever little inventions can be had almost any electronic store, and even on the Internet. There are phones that look like Kermit the Frog, phones shaped like footballs, Darth Vader phones, and even an Elvis Presley phone that sings and gyrates provocatively to “Jail House Rock.”

If you’re going retro, you might want to pick up a classic black phone with push-button dialing in rotary fashion from “Ringers!Online” (www.ringersonline.com). Like something off the screen from Casablanca, this phone will run you about fifty bucks including shipping and handling, but you have to provide your own Bogart impression. And if nostalgia is your thing, you can also pick up a beautiful candlestick style telephone formed from die cast pewter at “Phones to Own” (www.phonestoown.com). You might also like the turn of the century wall phones with rich oak styling available from “Earth Vision” (www.earthvisioncellular.com).

For a room decorated in French provincial style, you can buy an old-fashioned French porcelain phone. If you prefer the other side of the English Channel, maybe the Astral International phone from “Phones to Own” in bone china with 22k gold accent in an English china pattern might suit you. For something modern there are clear telephones or round ones with contemporary styling and AT&T even sells ultra modern telephones that come in designer colors like “dove gray, graphite and spruce.”

For better or worse, telephones are in our lives to stay, so we might as well have fun with them. Remember, just because a something’s functional doesn’t mean it ain’t art!