So...just what IS the protocol for
removing dead people from your contacts?
I'm curious because I finally have a
new phone to replace the one I dropped on the floor and cracked the screen of last
month. Of course, when you get a new phone you have to move
everything from the old one, and that includes the contact info—the
phone numbers, basically—of everyone who was in your old phone.
Heaven forbid I—we, actually—have to remember phone numbers these
days, right?
(And as an aside, I figured it out—the
only phone numbers I know without having to look them up are Loraine,
both my parents, and the Q107 transmitter, which I have to call every
time something goes wrong. Can you guess which one I wish I didn't
know by heart?)
Anyway, my previous phone was six years
old, which means that there was a lot of outdated contact info in
there. That phone also contained the numbers of three people who,
sad to say, have passed away in those six years. They were
individuals Loraine and I had met in the course of her research, and
people who had become cherished friends in the process. Sadly, they
were also all in the 80s or 90s when we met, and sadly, like many
people in their 80s and 90s, they're now gone.
So when transferring the contacts from
my old phone, I found myself in a bit of a quandary. After all, I
don't need their phone numbers any more. They're dead. But, for
whatever reason, it didn't feel right deleting their info. I don't
know why. The rational, logical part of me knows I don't need the
numbers any more. But to the rest of me it just didn't seem right to
get rid of the info. It's a dichotomy I can't explain. It's not
like by deleting the numbers I'm removing them from my life. That
happened when they passed away. And it's not like I'm ever gonna use
the numbers again. Knowing my luck, I'd accidentally touch of the
entries and call the number, only to have whoever picked it up when
it was reassigned by the phone company answer the call and wonder
what's going on.
Just what is one to do? Is there a
proper etiquette for dealing with a situation like this?
In the end, the logical, rational, and
practical side of me won out, and the numbers aren't in my new phone.
I know I don't need them, and I know there's absolutely no reason
for me to digitally carry them around with me. So there—I guess we
can now consider that the proper etiquette for dealing with a
situation such as this.
Still, it just seems strange not having
them in my phone. Now, if I could only do that with the number for
our transmitter...
8-)
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