| By: After All | Aug 17, 2017
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Stop calling my phone!

My closest friends know how I hate getting phone calls1. There is WhatsApp, there is SMS, there is Facebook Messenger, there is Instagram, there is SnapChat; there is even that stupid old thing they used to call "e-mail" - here is a link for those who were born after the 1990's explaining what "e-mails" (quotes intended) used to be.

By the way, e-mails were the big thing they first created to keep people away from those annoying phone calls. It didn't work2 well because, as it turned out3, e-mails were distant and slow and long and difficult to update. And they didn't ring.

Instant phone messaging (AKA "texting") in the early 2000's, along with that awesome snake game (link here), was a very quick game changer. People didn't have to call anymore :)

Good old days. It's funny how I sometimes miss things that never actually happened. Like those times when nobody called you unless it was an emergency. Like when big ass companies like Claro and Vivo and Santander wouldn't call you to sell their ultimately undesired products.

Yes, I miss all of that. Especially because nowadays they will call you. Every d... day. I have a student who reports Claro calling him from different freaking phone numbers on a weekly basis for months now. And they always change the number they are calling from, so don't even try to block their number; useless. Asking them to write your name off their mailing/calling list? Pff. Go watch Pelé's movie.

I know this text isn't doing any good to anyone. Except for me. It's good to be able to spit out my anger on people who are reading, and will therefore likely never call me again. Hint: if you are my friend, you are welcome to call me :) - as long as it's a matter of life or death.

And (students should never start paragraphs with "ands" or "buts", but I am a teacher, so leave me alone) if anyone out there knows the pain of getting calls when you absolutely can't pick up your phone4, or worse: when you are sharing your phone screen for professional reasons (like me showing videos to students in my classes) - if you know the pain, please let me know. By texting. Or leaving a comment.

To people who I love: it's okay to call, but consider texting first. Big companies and marketing teams: stop calling me5!

To remember
1 Hate getting - after verbs of feeling, remember to add ing: I like reading on weekends.

2 It didn't work - same as "it didn't function": I tried to speak Spanish in Argentina, but it didn't work as I expected. I have to study more!

3 Turned out - something had an unexpected, surprising result - I thought 2017 was going to be a great year,
but it turned out to be a tough one.


4 Pick up your phone - to answer your phone: I'm sorry I couldn't pick up my phone. I was in class. But you could have texted me, couldn't you?

5 Stop calling me -
a. "Stop + verb + ing" - no longer do something: You should stop working so much, you are getting too stressed out.
b. "Stop + to + verb" - stop other actions to do something:
We are lost! Let's stop to look at the map!