Crossed wires

"Ring ring, why don't you give me a call..."

"Stop feeling sorry for yourself, you big blubbering landline. Senti Abba songs won't make people dial you more often than they do. I'm the cell phone, the only future now."

"A tad more respect for your elders. I may be lonely, less used, yet lots more respectable than you. You're an awful addiction, especially for kids. They overuse you."

"Like me or loathe me, you can't ignore me. I'm a lifeline, not just a phone line for children. They're completely wired into me."

"Oho, so self-absorbed, that's why they call you the I Phone."

"Ha ha, lame blame! Fact remains that I'm the centre of attention. I get sleeker, swifter and sexier by the day. Plus I have power. App to gap, I cause the biggest fights between generations. Parents hate me, kids love me."

"I'm the safe bet, not the danger. With you glued to their ears and virtually inside their heads, children risk tumours, brain cancer, Alzheimer's later in life. You're slow poison I've overheard family elders say. Not every Apple a day keeps the doctor away."

"Rubbish, jealousy makes you jump to predictions never properly proven! It's too convenient to gun me for everything from dizziness to dementia."

"Cell phones are crutches making emotional cretins of the young. They share smut, thanks to you. Depraved, deprived, dumb, they don't talk any more. Suffer communication anxiety. The little cowards even break up with each other in messages keyed through you."

"They're totally clued into the times. You're from that ‘Dear John' letter generation - outvoted, outdated, out of style. How boring being stuck on the same single shelf forever. Never in one place, I'm the best travelled gizmo."

"It feels good to be an oasis of calm in a mad, meaninglessly rushed world. People put up their feet when they reach out for me, relaxed. Not cluttered crazy with misinformation."

"Every scrap of info I transmit trends wide and wild." "Trending, tweeting, twerking, you're full of viral vitriol."

"My instant buzz has the world witness sweeping change overnight. I break news, spread it. Revolutions happen. I can create them, I can control them."

"That's a terror, not a telephone. All the wrong things sell today anyway. You got lucky born in an age when gangsters get to be politicians and porn stars become A-list actors."

"Whatever. I'm hot, you're not!"

"Hold on. Here comes someone for me."

"It's just the lady of the house, grandmother of the boy I belong to. She must be shuffling up to you to tell her sister she's home from her bridge game. Looks like geriatrics alone need you."

"The young seldom see the old have unique strengths. But I wish you well - may the force be with you."

"Ooh, quoting Namo,are we?"

"No you rightwing pipsqueak. All currency, no culture, that's the trouble. Google tap the screen which is your face. It was Star Wars first."

Reach the columnist at: mehermarfatia@gmail.com