October 23, 2008
"Idon't answer the phone. I get the feeling whenever I do that there will be someone on the other end."-- Fred Couples
Our home landline phone was ringing the other night and that in itself was such an oddity I thought I had better answer it, something I am generally loath to do.
It was grandson Halen.
He and the telemarketers are about the only ones who use our landline anymore. So it has to be one of the two. Occasionally, someone will look us up in the phone book and call, but that occurrence is rare. Almost all our incoming calls go to our cell phones these days, and such is the way of the world.
BTW (meaning "by the way" in grandkid lingo), I cannot wait for Halen to get a cell phone.
This Grandma is lobbying his parents for a cell phone for him. Then, he can call me anytime, anywhere and I will answer without dread that the call could be from a telemarketer, political push poll operative, or from my credit card company offering the latest, greatest deal on balance transfers.
OK, about now you are wondering why in the world do we not use an answering machine or why don't we get voice mail. Simple answers: the answering machine died, and we have never replaced it. And, for the life of him, my husband cannot retrieve the voice mail messages, as he freely admits, because he is a bit technology-challenged. We gave up on both.
Yesterday, our cordless landline phone died, too. Realizing that we probably do need a landline of some kind or other, I went to the boxes in the basement to search. Surely there was an old one down there somewhere.
I found one son's cordless phone that he used in his undergrad college days. It is a high tech thing with a keypad I cannot understand. I was able to charge the battery, but could not get the darn thing to ring. I read the instruction book very carefully and so did the techno-challenged hubby. No luck for either of us.
Husband said, "Do you want me to take this phone to work and see if someone can figure it out?" I said no that I would call the son because surely he could talk me through it over the phone. I used my cell to call him.
"Mom, he said. This phone operates with a joystick technology. It is very simple. Just use it like you would a joystick on a video game."
Like I would know how to do that, I am thinking.
So, there you go. It is simpler to not answer the phone.
I recall what Ogden Nash once said about middle age and phones. "Middle age is when you are sitting at home on a Saturday night and the phone rings and you hope it isn't for you."
