About 14 years ago we bought our first cordless telephone. I was full of wonderful expectations of getting on with the housework whilst chatting to friends and family and never wasting a minute.
But surprise, surprise, it never quite worked like that.
I simply found it too uncomfortable to stick the receiver between my chin(s) and shoulder, leaving my two hands free to work. It was a real pain in the neck.
But what did happen was that I no longer ever knew where the phone was . With a houseful of teenage girls, the phone was rarely seen. Often it was discovered in the morning in one of their beds – with a completely run down battery, after hours of nighttime chats with their friends .
Don’t even ask what happened to the phone bill.
When that phone died of overwork I resolved and announced – no more cordless phones in our house while the children are still living at home.
At least with an old-fashioned phone, when it rings you know where it is, and what is so terrible about sitting down for a few minutes and relaxing while I chat to my friends.
This resolution held out until recently. We now have just one daughter left at home who is very busy, very popular and also I must tell you , very hardworking both at home and in her studies.
So we succumbed and got another cordless phone. The real clincher was when she promised to tuck it under her chin and do a ‘sponja’ ( clean the floor the Israeli way) at the same time.
But we still can never find the phone when she’s out of the house.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I have run around looking for the phone when I heard it ring , only to listen helplessly as the answering machine takes the message while I am still haplessly searching under every cushion and pile of newspapers, amongst the cosmetics and inside her clothes closet .
Of course we know there is a bell on the main base section of the phone, and if you press it you can hear the phone giving a corresponding ring from wherever it is lurking.
But what if you don’t hear any answering ring from the phone?
It once took three days until I had finished the laundry …… and lo and behold, there it was, at the bottom of the laundry basket, cushioned amongst the dirty towels, with any sound it may have tried to make begging to be rescued , muffled inside the damp, fluffy heap.
Mind you, it could have been worse.
Last week my married daughter was taking out a bag of garbage to the main garbage container in the street, when suddenly the bag started to ‘ring’.
If someone hadn’t called her at that moment she would have thrown the bag away, cordless phone and all and no one would ever have heard it from the depths of the dark dank, dumpster.
On second thoughts ……. that’s not such a bad idea ………now if I could only find the phone ….. I think it’s time to throw out the garbage.
5 comments:
That's really funny... but true. We used to have that problem. Now they have their own mobile phones which are lined up on the table when they come to visit and I can never tell which one is ringing.
Ros,
Don't get me started on mobile phones.
Although I admit to having one and using it a fair bit, my kids' generation barely remember life without them and it makes me feel ancient.
It doesn't help either that although I used to know my children's phone number - when there was one per family - now I don't even try to memorise them all - they are just on speed dial.
It's funny you should mention cordless phones Ann. I bought a simple cordless phone only recently to fulfil the mitzvah of kivud Av veEm.
Our last cordless phone gave up the ghost two months ago and it was decided that as we hardly ever use the Bezek line anymore and talk mainly on our Orange mobiles, that it wasn't worth buying an expensive cordless phone. I replaced it with a NIS 30 piece of Chinese plastic. Everything went fine until one Friday afternoon I was frying fish balls and nervous at the rapidly approaching candle lighting time when my mother phoned from England. I couldn't leave the fish balls but the phone is on the other side of the living room, chained to the wall by the Bezek cable. There was no one there to look after the fish balls so I had to let my little son answer and ask him to apologise to my Mum for me. I felt so bad thinking that my mother might think that I was just too busy to speak to her. I went out that Sunday and bought the cheapest cordless phone I could find for NIS 120, explaining to my dear wife that it was a matter of a mitzvah De'orisa. Now I can talk to my parents while getting on with Shabbos preparations. Does it get lost? Yes! But we know where to find it: On my daughter's dressing room table in her room. LOL.
Oh, I once found my phone on a shelf in the fridge. Which only proves that I probably spend too long in the fridge.
Mordechai - my daughter's bedside table is the first place I look, and it's often there.
But Ms Baking and Mistaking takes the biscuit (sorry about that) and definitely wins the prize.
I've so far never found the phone in the fridge.
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