Dear LFTP: the slide-phone and landline holdout

• Why do people keep shaming me for having a slide phone and landline instead of a smartphone?

Mike reads the second letter: a man with a slide phone (formerly flip) and a landline answering machine is tired of being asked when he'll get a 'new phone'; he doesn't want a smartphone and resents the shaming. The hosts' verdict: he's overreacting — he's an anomaly, and people ask out of curiosity like they'd ask about a rotary phone at great-grandma's; but he has a real opportunity to explain the freedom of not being a 'phone man' instead of being angry about it ('Ben, I love the way you bully,' one host quips). The 'secular answer': the latest phone is a status symbol, but what askers really mean is 'when are you going to make it easier for us to communicate with you?' They close on constant availability: answering every call is like gambling ('if I don't play, I can't win'), one host's dead phone was revived just in time for his little sister's emergency-room call ('it only takes one'), and saying yes to every interruption tells the person in front of you that anything could matter more.