Say It Anyway - The Phone Log

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The Phone Log
30 calls in 30 days, summer 1999 | back to Say It Anyway
For those who don't stutter: the phone is the worst. On the phone you can't see the other person being patient, they can't see you trying, and a block just sounds like silence, so they say "Hello? Hello?" and hang up. For years I'd walk across campus to ask a question rather than call. I let pizza go unordered.

So in June I made a deal with myself: one phone call a day for thirty days, the kind I'd normally avoid. Before each call I wrote down how scared I was (1 to 10) and after, how it actually went (1 to 10, 10 = great). Renee's rule from therapy: calls to people who love you don't count. Here are the highlights. I skipped the boring ones.

Day 1, Monday, June 14, 1999. Pizza place. Large pepperoni. Blocked on "large" for maybe five seconds, which on the phone feels like a week. He said "hello?" ONE time and then waited. I got my pizza. Scared: 10. Went: 6.

Day 3, Wednesday, June 16. Tried to count calling my mom. Disqualified myself. Called the public library instead to renew a book. The lady said "take your time, hon." Scared: 8. Went: 8.

Day 6, Saturday, June 19. Called the movie theater. Got the recording. Ha. Called back and pushed 0 to talk to a real person, just to make it count, and asked if they had a student discount. They don't. Scared: 7. Went: 7.

Day 7, Sunday, June 20. Father's Day, so I called Dad, which doesn't count. But I told him about the log, and he got quiet and then said Grandpa used to make Grandma call everyone, his whole life, even the doctor. I never knew that. Not counted. Probably the most important call of the month.

Day 9, Tuesday, June 22. Cable company. Twenty minutes on hold, which gave me lots of time to get scared. Stuttered all over my account number. The woman was very nice about it and read it back to me so I only had to say "yes." Scared: 9. Went: 7.

Day 12, Friday, June 25. The bad one. Called a hardware store to ask if they had a part for our sink. Blocked on "faucet." Guy hung up. I sat there with the phone for a while feeling about twelve years old. Then I called back and said, "Hi, I stutter, I think I just got cut off," and it came out smooth as anything. Different guy. They had the part. Scared: 8. Went: 3, then 8. I'm counting it as a win.

Day 15, Monday, June 28. Called the campus radio station request line and asked for "Name" by the Goo Goo Dolls, because I thought that was funny. Nobody else did. The DJ played it though. Scared: 6. Went: 9.

Day 18, Thursday, July 1. Called the county historical museum about volunteering in the fall. Stuttered on purpose on the first word, nice and loose, the way Renee taught me. Then the rest came out fine. That's the weird magic of it. I start Saturdays in October. Scared: 7. Went: 9.

Day 21, Sunday, July 4. Holiday, everything's closed. Called a friend from the self-help group who's also doing phone stuff. We counted it for each other. We are cheaters. Happy Fourth.

Day 24, Wednesday, July 7. Three landlords about apartments for next year. Three calls! One lady finished every single word for me and got half of them wrong, so now she thinks my name is Mark. Not renting from her. Scared: 6. Went: 6.

Day 27, Saturday, July 10. Not a phone call, but I went through the drive-thru and ordered the barbecue sandwich. Out loud. Into the speaker, which is basically a phone. Blocked on the B for a while. Got the sandwich. It was not as good as I'd been imagining for six years. Scared: 7. Went: 10.

Day 30, Tuesday, July 13. The big one. Called the school district office about my student teaching placement for the spring. Blocked hard on my own name, of course. So I said, "Sorry, I stutter, it's M-Matt Prewitt." And the woman said, "Oh, my son stutters. He's nine." We talked for ten minutes. She asked me what she should do for him and I told her about speech clinics and about not finishing his words. I think I was more help to her than she was to me. Scared: 9. Went: 10.

How scared I was before the call:

Day 1 ########## 10 Day 9 ######### 9 Day 12 ######## 8 Day 18 ####### 7 Day 24 ###### 6 Day 30 ######### 9

So it didn't go to zero. It's not supposed to. What changed is the second number. By the end, I knew that whatever happened, I'd still be okay when I hung up. That's the whole thing, really.

If you try this, go easy on yourself. Start with calls that don't matter. Have somebody to tell afterward. And if it's too much right now, that's okay too. I didn't try it until I was twenty-two.

Want to trade phone stories? [email protected]
Last updated September 22, 1999.

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