I don't have a cell phone

Don't plan to get one either. In fact, I'm sort of phone-phobic. It might be one of those genes your parents hand down to you, in my case, my father, who never answered the phone if he could avoid it, and if he did have to pick it up, he'd say, pretty quickly, 'I hear your mother on the other line, so I'll hang up.'

Once I asked him about this. His answer: 'I'm always afraid when I pick up that there'll be someone there.'

Not only I don't have a cell phone, but I don't have an answering machine either, or if I do, I mean, if it's built in somehow, then I don't know how to consult it. I hate the idea of coming home and having to listen to a bunch of messages. Also, I don't answer the phone even if I home, if it's in the morning, because that's my writing time, and if I get interrupted I might never go back to work. Ever. (I have the same sort of anxieties about other things, like going to the gym, or letting stuff pile up. Stop one day and I might never go again. Let stuff pile up where it's not supposed to and I might never find it again.)

Of course, there are inconveniences, like when someone needs to get in touch with you, but family and friends know about my quirks, and others, well, I say, use email.

My parents were of a generation when the phone was not something you spent time on, especially if it was long distance. When I grew up and moved away, I was amazed when I insulted my French mother-in-law by offering to pay for a phone call I made. My own mother expected me to pay, or at least offer to pay. I used to think that was her, but I now think it was a whole culture.