Everyone's Telephone

For most of all time no one had a telephone, but once we got them, it took hold of us like crazy, and it became unthinkable not to have one. We still have them, but haven't they changed! Both wonderful and awful, but have them we do. And they are ours, we keep them next to our bodies, I'm betting they'll soon be imbedded into our temples or wrists or something. Yet, if you don't happen to have one on you, and you need one, will just anyone on the street loan you theirs? And if they don't, what then?
This relic made me think of it's companion piece, also a relic:

We’re all in the telephone book,
Folks from everywhere on earth–
Anderson to Zabowski,
It’s a record of America’s worth.

We’re all in the telephone book,
There’s no priority–
A millionaire like Rockefeller
Is likely to be behind me.

For generations men have dreamed
Of nations united as one.
Just look in your telephone book
To see where that dream’s begun.

When Washington crossed the Deleware
And the pillars of tyranny shook,
He started the list of democracy
That’s America’s telephone book.

— by Langston Hughes