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Hannah and the Phone Booth

Pay phones are an endangered species these days. The cell phone has all but wiped out these beautiful creatures. Of course, because of the scarcity of Perfectly Normal phone booths, the Especially Special ones have nowhere to hide, and are dying out as well.

There is only one Especially Special telephone booth left in Cincinnati OH. I will not tell you where it is, for fear that it will be traumatized by flash photography or that the Cincinnati Zoo might take it captive to "preserve" it. Suffice to say that it is tucked away somewhere, looking like a Perfectly Normal telephone booth (which isn't exactly normal any more, considering the rarity.)

Once, not so very long ago, (just this Tuesday, actually) a girl named Hannah was wandering the streets of Cincinnati in a fog of confusion. Her friend Karen (who was generally a person with more sense) had brutally refused to give Hannah pumpkin bread. As you can understand, Hannah devastated, and had taken to the streets looking for any sort of meaning. She stumbled upon Cincinnati's last Especially Special Phone booth. Of course, Hannah did not know that it was Cincinnati's last Especially Special phone booth, she thought it was simply a telephone booth. On most days, Hannah would have simply noted the fact that pay phones were rare, and would have gone on her merry little way. However, Hannah's way was not particularly merry today, so she did continue on it. She decided to call her friends, George (who was mostly human), Lucy(who was Quite human), and Billy (who looked human, but was really a goat. You could not tell because they had filled his horns). Fortunately, they all lived in the same house, so Hannah only had to make one phone call. Unfortunately, they lived in England, so the bill would be pretty steep.

But Hannah was still in a no-pumkin-bread funk, so she wasn't taking this into account. Hannah did know that George, Billy, and Lucy would cheer her up. She deposited her money and made the call. The doors to the phone booth clicked ominously behind her, and Hannah found she could not open the doors. This was, of course, a safety feature. Because the next minute the telephone booth was hurtling through the air at a tremendous rate.

Hannah was glad that she brought her knitting.

Half an hour later the phone booth landed in the front yard of the home that Hannah had attempted to call. She stepped out of the phone booth, scarf in her hand, finished. Hannah was greeted at the door by Lucy with a plate full of pumkin bread. Billy bleeted, and George sat down Very Quickly Indeed with the shock of it all.

All too soon their afternoon of Uno and advanced club passing was cut short because it was time for Hannah to be getting home. Most unfortunatly, the telephone booth no longer took American. George, Billy and Lucy were kind enough to pool their funds to buy a passage home for their friend. Hannah gave them the scarf out of gratitude.

Hannah started knitting a pair of mittens on the way home, and she was late for dinner. But it was all right, because she had gotten her pumkin bread after all.


I blame this on Karen and George.