A Sound to be Detested

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle. It made me 1) want to hop on a plane to France or 2) at the least, open a bottle of French wine. The following excerpt describes my on-going love/hate relationships with the telephone:

"We got home to find the telephone ringing. It is a sound both of us detest, and there is always a certain amount of maneuvering to see who can avoid answering it. We have an innate pessimism about telephone calls; they have a habit of coming at the wrong time, and they are too sudden, catapulting you into a conversation you weren't expecting. Letters, on the other hand, are a pleasure to receive, not least because they allow you to consider your reply. But people don't write letters anymore. They're too busy, they're in too much of a hurry or, dismissing the service that manages to deliver bills with unfailing regularity, they don't trust the post. We are learning not to trust the telephone, and I picked it up as I would a long-dead fish."
                                           --From A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle