Ringtone Memories

In the locker room this morning, a woman’s cell phone rang, broadcasting a tone that instantly transported me to another time and place. It was like that feeling you get when you smell something that reminds you of your grandmother, or when you hear a song that reminds you of that incredibly awful New Year’s Eve when you were 16 that made you vow to never celebrate New Year’s Eve again. The ringtone was “Strum” and, in case you can’t listen to it now, it was a happy little ditty played on a mandolin. It was my daughter Lawler's ringtone many, many years ago, long before she moved away and became my blog coach. It was the early days of cell phones, and I had painstakingly assigned specific rings to everyone in my circle of family and friends, so that I could identify them by the sound of their ring. They were simpler times, when cell phones were still a novelty and before social media had begun to lead us down rabbit holes like this one. I assigned the Strum ring to Lawler because it sounded like her – artistically hip with a traditional underpinning – and hearing that tone this morning plucked a heart string that caused me to feel a little bit of stress mixed with a hint of dread and a heap of nostalgia because, after all, she was a teenager when she had that ring. I’ve been thinking about those ancient ringtones ever since and knew I had to share these musings with you, dear readers. I fully expect that, within a few minutes, you will all pick up your phones and let the ringtones send you on your own trip down memory lane.

Right now my friend Cary is musing that she had no idea you could assign a ringtone to a person and, since she is getting ready to call me to ask how on earth do you DO that, allow me to offer brief instructions for the cellular maladroits in the audience. On an iPhone, go to Contacts > Locate the person > Edit > Ringtone. If you have anything other than an iPhone you will have to figure it out yourself because I am clueless when it comes to Androids and those other phones that spontaneously combust in your pocket.

I was momentarily horrified when I didn't see any of the old ringtone favorites, but then discovered the “Classic” selection at the bottom of the list. It is a treasure trove that contains 28 oldies – the vinyl records of the ringtone class. I went down the list, tapping them one by one, savoring the memories each provoked.

RINGTONES OF THE OLDEST

Janelle's dog, Scout, because everyone likes pictures of dogs.

“Alarm” is a ringtone based on the sound you hear in movies when there is about to be a nuclear meltdown in the center of the space station and the universe depends on Tom Cruise to circumvent the programmed self-destruct sequence. It was my sister Janelle's ringtone 10 years ago and it suited her well, back when her life was packed with more drama than an episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians. At the time, my sister Norah and I considered writing a novel based on Janelle’s life that we decided should begin with the sentence, “Trouble followed her wherever she went.” But then, just as quickly as the madness had begun, it subsided, and so I switched Janelle’s ringtone to “Bark,” which seemed appropriate for someone whose dog annually logs more frequent flyer miles than I do.

 

RINGTONES OF THE MIDDLE 

That's my bad-to-the-bone sister, Norah, on the right.

My sister Norah’s original ringtone was  “Fur Elise,” based on that tedious Beethoven tune that rears its ugly head at thousands of piano recitals every year. When we were all taking piano lessons, Norah memorized it and played it constantly, so I couldn’t resist assigning it to her, despite the fact that I really and truly, honestly loathe it. In later versions of the Apple IOS, Beethoven would be given the heave-ho, so I eventually replaced the treacly Fur Elise with “Piano Riff,” which sounds sort of like the opening bars of Bad to the Bone. For reasons I cannot even explain, it suited Norah well and it nearly made me tear up to hear it again, after all these years.

 

RINGTONES OF THE YOUNGEST

Yours truly, in the pre-chill days.

All this reminiscing caused me to wonder, what would my ringtone be? What sound could define me? When I was young, if there had been a ringtone like the “Flight of the Bumblebee,” that would definitely be it. But, recently, I have been concentrating on just being chill and would certainly deserve a new ringtone. My transformation began a few weeks ago, when I left LaGuardia Airport, bound for Charlottesville on an American Airlines regional jet. 35 minutes into the flight, the pilot announced that we would need to turn around because there was a crack in the windshield. I considered the fact that I didn’t have anything I really had to do that evening and set my mind to not getting my panties into a twist. Just chill, I thought. We landed back at LaGuardia and were moved to another plane in jig time. They closed the door and it looked like we would only be about 90 minutes late, so I was still chillin’ when the captain announced that the flight had been cancelled and we would be assigned to another flight the next day. We trudged back into the terminal to stand in the hotel and dinner voucher line.

Later, on the bus to the Holiday Inn with my $12 dinner voucher in my hot little hand, I did my best impression of my mother, and struck up a conversation with another passenger. You must understand: This is not something I do. I typically keep my eyes forward and my mouth shut. This Chatty Cathy thing was a stretch for me, but it seems like something chilled-out people do. My seatmate remarked that, while everyone else had acted pretty hot under the collar, I didn’t seem to be too bothered by the inconvenience. I expect he thought I was dumb as a post, but have decided to accept this as proof that I deserve a chill ringtone.

All of those old Classic IOS ringtones are pretty frenetic, which is probably why they got moved to the second tier, but I found one on the current list that suits my new persona. It is a shameless amalgamation of Three Dog Night tunes – a little bit of Mama Told Me Not to Come blended with Jeremiah was a Bullfrog – called “Uplift.” Oh and, in case you were wondering, I eventually made it home the following afternoon, 21 hours after the aviation adventure began, still as cool as a cucumber.

THE TRUTH 

Truth be told, if I can step out of my new socially-acceptable chill persona for just a moment, ringtones of any kind are annoying as hell. So now that you are done reminiscing, do everyone a favor and turn your Ringer and Alerts volume all the way down and set your phone on vibrate. Just think: if that woman in the locker room this morning had set her phone to vibrate, you wouldn't have had to read any of this.

But since you did, what ringtone defines YOU?