Harriet’s World

By HARRIET BISHOP

I have a cordless phone. Now you say, ‘big deal’. Well, this phone does everything but make ice cream for me and I am sure by next week someone will have figured out a way to do that. This phone has so many options that it is a built in computer by itself. It is taking me awhile to get used to all the options etc. I have been taking my time learning them. It has a little screen on it and I have call waiting and caller I D and voice mail and on and on. It will dial and redial and pick your phone numbers and I have a devil of a time remembering how to use all the dial things on it. I keep the little book handy that tells you how to do all these things so I can learn. Good grief, I ask myself, what happened to just picking up the phone and dialing Rugby 6 2835. The other day my answering machine bit the dust and one of my friends said,’ use your voice mail on your phone.’ So I activated that and now I can take the messages on the phone just like all the rest of you intelligent people. My mother never could have used a phone like mine and she never would have wanted to. Buttons made her crazy.
Well, the other day I found out my phone had one more great thing on it that I had never used before. I always keep this cordless wonder in its cradle right next to my chair. When I am finished with it, whereever I am, I replace it back on its little charger stand so it can recharge itself. There isn’t anything that makes me more crazy than to be talking to someone and be cut off because their phone needed to be recharged. Thats not going to happen to me if I can help it. I was always taught to put things back where they belong.
Well, the other day the joke turned out to be on me. As I turned to get something off of my phone stand, the receiver inadvertently flipped off of the stand onto the floor. I saw it fall. It landed, so I thought, in a little narrow space between the stand and my chair. Thats happened before and it is no big deal to retrieve it. I tried reaching down and feeling around for it from my chair but I couldn’t find it . Reluctantly I got up (this is no easy thing for me to do as I have to use the chair lift) to search for it.
I searched and I looked etc. and I could not find that silly phone. Pretty soon I had the stand pulled out and I had looked in every space available for the silly thing and it was nowhere to be found. I knew I had seen it fall there but it was like the floor had swallowed it up. I really felt stupid. I finally decided that it had accidentally slipped downstairs where I am unable to go. I walked to the head of the stairs and peered down the stairs but could not see that stupid receiver anywhere. Finally in desperation I decided to call one of my neighbors who have children who were old enough to come and help me search for the phone. I often call them in times like this for assistance. So I got hold of my neighbors and over came one of the girls to help me search. I was just sure we would find it now. Guess what, we didn’t. We tore that place apart and could not find that phone. Now I am sure that the cat has eaten it. I am feeling dumber by the minute when the little girl suggests she bring her Dad over and maybe he can help us find it. I jumped on that one. Man to the rescue. Here comes my knight in shining armor. Over comes Dad telling me not to feel so stupid that they often lose their phone too. We search everything again and we are just about to give up when the little girl says, “Dad push the pager on the charger.” Pager, I say, “What pager?, I have never had to use the pager before.” Dad pushes the pager.
Now we got a beep beep to help us find the phone. We follow the sound of the beep beep and find that the beep beep keeps coming in and out. “Wait a minute.” says Dad. “It’s coming from inside your lift chair.” Everytime the chair goes up, the sound goes away. Everytime the chair goes down, the sound gets closer. The chair has eaten the phone! It took some figuring out but God bless pagers. It seems the phone fell into a little pouch that appears in the back of my chair when my chair is in the reclining position . If I had tried I couldn’t have made that happen. It was just a freak accident. Without that pager we would never have found that phone. It took a little time to retrieve it but my phone is now in its cradle with the pager ready for action if I ever need it again. As for my knight in shinning armor? He went home with his daughter and a lot of thank yous from me and we all had a good story to tell our friends.
Remember those infamous words from me,”It’s a good thing to know how to use the pager on your cordless wonders.”