When Talk Gets Cheap

When I was a kid, my uncles and aunts and my gran would call from far-away places and all action in the house would cease as we passed the phone from person to person, sometimes picking up a second extension that rendered the first person mouse-voiced for the remainder of the call. Time morphed from bulbous drops of homework hell to the fast lane where every minute cost thirty-five cents.

We couldn't get enough of that long-distance.

When I was a senior in high school, my boyfriend went off t...