The Hamburger Phone

 Memories fade, are lost and sometimes found again. Recently I’ve been dreaming of my childhood hamburger phone. It’s hard to remember where it all started. A gift given to me that then sparked all of the subsequent hamburger phones I kept on gifting people or whether I gave the first hamburger phone in the first place.

  Why I stopped giving them, well, I suppose I realised The Hamburger phone held promises that just couldn’t always be kept. Perhaps the lock down has taken its toll. That’s because I looked up Hamburger phone and actually shed a tear. Too much time alone and even pictures of  hamburger phones might even make you cry. Was it a stupid gift? No. Gifts aren’t really like that so much. Gifts are merely objects covered in stories, memories, love, dependency, obligations, traditions, trepidation and sometimes risk. I was plagued with allergies as a child. Wheat was ruled out and this meant I couldn’t eat Hamburgers. I was given a hamburger phone as a substitute. The card read ;

 

“I bought you this phone, since you can’t eat hamburgers anymore. Then I realised it might remind you of a time when you did. We can take it back if you don’t want it.” 

 

I didn’t want to take it back. I was very small. I turned my bed

room into an imaginary  burger Diner and a few  of my childhood friends at the time took the downstairs as first floor Hamburger Diner while I made burgers on the second floor on an imaginary cooktop.  Orders were taken via the Hamburger Phones we all ended up with, as I went on to buy Hamburger phones for many of the people I loved when their Birthdays came round. Did it make me feel like eating burgers again? Not all that much no. It was really an attempt at holding memories open, not hanging up on hope, attempting to collect hearts and link them up like a phone line might do, without bottling them away. Strange given it was a Hamburger phone. Strange given it was made of plastic and could of represented a set of golden arches equal to all the trappings of a material world. I wasn’t looking at the Hamburger phone like that. Sometimes we swapped floors. Sometimes we worked in our play on the same floor. I suppose we were experimenting with distance, the idea of hierarchy, loneliness, togetherness. Children are deeper beings than we might sometimes understand. Their absorption of surroundings, people, nature, structures, words, feelings family and inclusion is developing at a rate faster than at any other life stage. Pushing children into adult worlds too quickly is harmful, especially when it’s about making money, but regardless they are already assessing their place in adult worlds or their future adult worlds very early on. 

The Hamburger phone was received differently by people who received them. It’s sometimes hard to articulate the motivation for a gift when you are a small child. I remember some of the responses:

 

“Oh WOW NOW I’VE GOT A HAMBURGER PHONE TOO.” (sweet)

“What the hell is this? A hamburger phone? Weird. “ (not so sweet)

“Why didn’t I get the first Hamburger phone present?” (pain in the ass) 

“ Thank you. Um, just what I always wanted” (polite/possible passive aggressive)

“I was actually hoping for a hotdog phone” ( never happy, always looking for a better option) 

“What? This is the niftiest little phone I’ve ever seen. You made my day. I’m sure everyone will be impressed by this Hamburger phone.” (Eternal Optimist) 

“Ah, okay. I like it. Strangely. I would never have said this, but I actually like this present but I’m going to put it away for now until I have time to set it all up. Thank you.” (The mystery girl Maria) 

No words, just a hug (sad and sweet, sweetly happy)

“I think I might be a bit too old for this gift, but thank you for the thought? (Honest but brutal)

 

Too old for a novelty phone? For some yes. For me, no. Well, I barely use the landline these days, but nevertheless a collection of novelty phones never does go astray. 

So why did I give up on the trusty Hamburger phone gift? I grew up. People come and people go. I began to understand no gift can make everything ok. Not everything lasts forever. Not everyone likes hamburger phones and in this material world people make choices that leave behind good and not so good memories. That people make bad choices, much like the pull of the golden arches, choices that mean the livewires, the lines are out for good. 

 

Maybe the person who gave me the Hamburger phone should have made it a heart phone. Nah, I still love the clumsy little way of it. I still love the deeper learning in it. 

 

“We can’t go out for burgers but don’t forget to call me if you need to.” 

 

So the calls  to different people from there on, were sometimes, cheesy full of loved up romance. So the calls were sometimes needy, desperate, serious, wavering round the edges like a piece of crisp lettuce. So the calls were sometimes silly, just like the look of a Hamburger phone itself. So the calls were sometimes cranky, meaty and mad. Sometimes full of saucy gossip, sometimes sprinkled with sesame seed tears. 

 

I replaced the Hamburger phone with engraved pens in later primary school. The bloke at Eltham Mr Mint shoe repair and engraving got to know me. I thought it would be more grown up but the Hamburger Phone was much more than a child, much more than one person, much more than a phone shaped like a burger. It was part of my story. Not a movie daft people make you make for free. It was mine. It still is.