If a Woman Answers, Ask for Irene : Technology: A breakthrough necessitated by a hostile world makes us nostalgic for the old-fashioned hang-up.

Communication’s latest, the call-back feature, will make the phrase, “If a woman answers, hang up” as obsolete as eight-track tapes and rotary-dial telephones.

A certain communications giant has been heralding this device that allows you, with the push of a button, to automatically dial back the last person to have dialed your number. Oh, great. No more calling somebody just to hear his or her voice. No more silently replacing the receiver because you got the wrong number. No losing your courage at the last minute. From now on, making a phone call will be as irretrievable as punching the hole on a ballot.

Let’s see, what kinds of people will be signing up for this? Your general neurotics? “Omigod, I bet that was Publisher’s Clearing House calling to tell me I’d just won $1 million!” The paranoid? “Who’s trying to drive me crazy by calling and hanging up before I reach the phone?” The suspicious spouse? “Why is it that they only hang up when I answer the phone?”

Suddenly, a simple phone call will become a major responsibility. I don’t know if I’m up for the challenge. Now, whether we like it or not, we’re going to have to talk to that certain someone who seems to always answer the phone and then goes on and on about their latest surgery when we really want to talk to the other one and have been carefully plotting our calls to catch our friend at home.

And yet, due to our ever-increasing violent and hostile society, this is a godsend. No more cowardly harassers and fatal-attraction types who have taken advantage of technology to abuse and torment other people while remaining safely anonymous.

I feel sad for the teen-age girls who will never know the thrill of calling a boy just to hear his voice and then quickly hanging up and giggling deliriously with their girlfriends about the whole thing.

Some progress has taken the mystery out of life for me. I liked the idea of finding out the answer to the big question in the delivery room instead of looking at an indistinguishable blip on a screen. I’m jealous of kids who don’t have to agonize over face clocks and half-pasts and quarters-to or who can dial their shoes tight instead of tying, looping and threading.

And now this. Too bad a handful of nuts will make it impossible for the rest of us to save face when we’ve sheepishly called a lover just to see if he’s home yet.