Can you hear me now, Uncle Sam? (standard:humor, 897 words)
Author: Godspenman	Added: Jun 09 2013	Views/Reads: 4345/2513	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
You can imagine my feelings when I recently found out that good old Uncle Sam was checking up on my phone calls, email messages and the rest of the social networking. Finally, somebody is really watching out for me.

You can imagine my feelings when I recently found out that good old
Uncle Sam was checking up on my phone calls, email messages and the 
rest of the social networking. Finally, somebody is really watching out 
for me. 

It is more than that. Somebody is so interested in my affairs they are
getting involved in my telephone conversations. I must admit that at 
first I was a little suspicious about all of this. 

For example. What does Uncle Sam know about me and my phone calls that I
do not know? 

I get an awful lot of telephone calls during the course of a week. Some
are friends, some are family, some are trying to sell me the Brooklyn 
Bridge. Even if I lived in New York City, I would not want to own the 
Brooklyn Bridge. Can you imagine how much it cost to keep that thing up 
and running? 

As I said, at first I was a little suspicious about somebody listening
into my phone calls. Then I remembered that back in “the day,” 
everybody did that. We had what was called the “party line” telephone 
system. That meant that everybody was connected to everybody else. 

My grandmother for example, lived in a valley up in the mountains. She
was on the party line, of course, and everybody had a special ring. 
Grandma's ring was two long and one short rings. Whenever the telephone 
rang, dear old grandmother knew who was being called and, being a nosy 
person, she usually listened into the conversations. I am not picking 
on my grandmother, for everybody did it. Everybody knew everybody was 
doing it. 

It was gossiper's heaven. 

I think there is something to be said for everybody knowing everybody's
business. That way everybody is up and up on the things they are 
talking about. 

Of course, there is a dark side to it. I am semi-ashamed to reveal that
I was part of that dark side. 

Whenever anybody wanted to send out a rumor there was always the party
line telephone system. My cousin and I got together and cooked up some 
juicy rumor about old Henry up the valley. Henry had never been married 
and was probably in his 70s at the time. 

We started the rumor that Henry had a girlfriend. 

It did not take long for everybody in the valley to know that Henry, who
had been a bachelor for over seventy years, now had a special love 
interest. The big question coming through the party line was, who is 
this lucky woman? 

Before long, this got a little out of control. Everybody believed that
Henry had a special love interest and it got to the point that Henry 
himself believed he had a love interest. 

I remember going with my grandmother to the grocery store and we
happened to run into good old Henry. My grandmother, who was the queen 
of the gossipers, took this opportunity to speak to Henry. 

“Oh Henry,” she said as we approached him. “I heard the news that you
have a girlfriend. I'm so happy for you. You'll have to bring her over 
to my house for coffee and cake some time.” 

“Thank you, Mary,” Henry said with the biggest smile I have ever seen
him wear. “I've never been happier.” 

At this point, I did not know what to do. Everybody was so happy with
this rumor, especially old Henry, that the truth would have destroyed 
the entire valley. I did think of starting a rumor that Henry and his 
new girlfriend had a fight and broke up. However, on second thought, 
Henry was so happy these days, I just hated to spoil his life. 

I never knew how that turned out. The last time I saw Henry he was
smiling and thanking people for congratulating him on having a 


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