Question of the day
Posted: November 17th, 2009 | Author: Jacky | Filed under: Observed and overheard, Storytelling | Tags: Dial a stranger, Phil Collins, podcasts | No Comments »One of my best friends in college enjoyed posing questions of the day — in person, on the phone or through text messages. If she asked the question in person or on the phone, it became more of a discussion than just a response. Stories would unfold from a simple answer. No matter what, we’d end up laughing and with a new inside joke. That’s just how we roll.
But questions of the day weren’t all fun and games. She swears I never responded to the “Favorite Phil Collins song” text, even though I know I replied with “Su-su-suuuuudio-ooohhh-oooooh.” Things were tense between us for awhile as I tried to convince her of my participation. Despite my efforts, she never believed me and we eventually dropped the subject (or got distracted by something else). If I brought up Phil Collins to her now, there’s a good chance she’d remind me of the time I ignored her poll question. I never knew Phil Collins meant so much to her.
I adopted her question of the day antics and started including them in my own e-mails. Sometimes they’d turned into a random thought of the day, or a fact of the day or a quote of the day. Whatever it was, I liked adding another layer to my correspondence, often completely unrelated to the rest of my e-mail.
When I stumbled upon the Dial-A-Stranger podcast last weekend, it brought back memories of Tasha’s question of the day. Listeners can submit a questions and their phone numbers on the website. The podcast then takes those questions and calls the people who volunteered their phone numbers. The co-hosts start out with general chit-chat and natural questions evolve from those answers. Then they get to the question of the day, which is actually just one of many questions, but it’s the only one that’s planned.
Basically it’s consensual eavesdropping and it’s great. Just by prodding and asking follow up questions, the hosts elicit so many more details of a story. One woman was a yoga instructor, but the question led her to talk about when she was a maid for a lawyer. She only worked five hours, five days a week and the house was so clean that all she did was scrub the shower once a week and read all the books in the man’s library.
I’m considering submitting my phone number. Though with my track record of missing calls, I don’t think I’d ever make it on — even if I saved Dial-A-Stranger’s number in my phone. BUT it would make me really happy if a responsible, phone-answering friend handed over their number so I could hear someone familiar one podcast.
Who’s sacrificing themselves for my listening pleasure?
