Use of English PRO

I remember it well. (0) THERE was a time in the past when I (1) ............ go to lunch without having to answer calls from my boss, my wife, my children and my bank manager. There (2) ............ to be a time when notions such as 'peace' and 'privacy' actually had a literal meaning. And when there was someone that you didn't want to speak to, never mind the reasons, you had the freedom not to (3) ............ Excuses were easy: I was out, I was sleeping, the phone was off the hook, and so on. It's all changed now. None of those old defences work. The callers simply come back at you with something like "but didn't you see my unanswered call on your mobile?" (4) ............ about the very phrase for a moment: to see one's unanswered call. I'm not a technophobe, I'm really not. It's just that I've (5) ............ shown to be tragically wrong about this one. I once said "It's just a fad — it'll go away." That was more than ten years ago, and the people that walked around the streets talking away on those clumsy-looking devices were few and far (6) ............ and they looked ridiculous to everyone else. Now it's the other way around. (7) ............ you don't have a mobile phone, you're the (8) ............ one out, and others look at you as though you're walking around without any trousers.