Some say they are the greatest invention since sliced bread. Others, my husband included, hate them.
I’m talking about cordless phones. I’m in the group that thinks they’re great.
Before cordless phones (BCF), when the front doorbell rang, you’d say, “Hold on just a minute … I’ll be right back.” Then you’d go answer the door, and if you’re like me, you’d forget you were ever on the phone in the first place.
BCF, someone from the dentist’s office would call to schedule an appointment. You’d say, “Let me go see if that’s okay” and you’d put the phone down, walk over to your calendar on the wall, see it wasn’t okay, walk back to the phone, pick it up and say, “How about Tuesday instead of Wednesday?” She’d say, “No, he’s playing golf that day” so you’d have to go back and forth again and again until you finally found a good time.
BCF, your mother-in-law would call and you’d have to pull up a chair and just grin and bear it. Now you can walk over to the dryer and fold clothes, go walk to the mailbox to get the mail, or even sit at the computer and check your email and she’s never the wiser.
BCF, it was all the rage to have a REALLY long cord put on your kitchen phone. You could walk all around the kitchen, wash dishes, and cook and clean, all while you were on the phone. The result? A huge knot of tangled cord. Some of those loops got so intertwined they were impossible to undo. If you did manage to get them unscrambled, then some of the curls were going the wrong way. I never understood how that could happen, but it drove me crazy.
Then they came out with little twirly doohickeys that supposedly keep the cord from getting twisted, but they never lasted very long at my house. Ultimately the cord got in such bad shape that it crackled every time we used the phone. So, when it rang we would race through the house, do front flips over the sofa so we could get to one of the “good” phones before they hung up.
When we got our first cordless phone, my life improved. No more tangled masses, no more front flips. Or so I thought.
The problem now is that the phones are never on their cradles. It drives my hubby up the wall. The phone rings, he walks over to the base, and the phone’s not there. Sure, he can push the speakerphone button and answer it that way, but he doesn’t like to do that. You know … old habits die hard.
The very reason that I love cordless phones makes it inconvenient to return the phone to the base. The phone rings, I answer it, it’s my mom. I walk to my study to read her a joke, then back to my room to get some hand lotion. The phone call ends when I’m in the kid’s bathroom hanging up some towels. I set the phone down so I have both hands to finish the job, and forget about it. It’s all very innocent, but the phone doesn’t find it’s way back to the base just the same.
When the phone’s not on the handset for a day or so, the battery gets very weak. Then the phone rings, I answer it, and it starts giving me the warning beeps that say it’s getting ready to die. So, I do front flips over the sofa again to get to the one and only corded phone in the house before I get cut off.
I know there is a new flavor of cordless phones where the base has a corded phone for the “the-phone-needs-to-stay-here” types, and there’s also a second cordless one for us wanderers. But I have a hard time buying a new phone unless the old one has cratered, and it seems this one is in very good health. Murphy’s Law.
Well, gotta run … the phone’s ringing and I can’t find it. Another day … another tuck-n-roll.
