My daughter’s misplaced their cellular device about one week ago and it seems the looking for it has ceased. This is highly problematic as my son has moved out so I have no way of being in contact with them unless..I plug into the dreaded landline! (Gasps heard round the interwebs, amidst with shrieks of unbridled ridicule and terror).
The landlines brief history
For those of you who are teens or younger, you may or may not know that once upon a time phones had to be plugged in to a phone jack port in the wall in order for it to work. The hand held talking and listening piece was also corded so one had little freedom to walk around, let alone leave the house while talking. Primitive, sure and this was all we knew.
Every household had not one but multiple landline phones, though nobody called them landlines. Titled simply phones, this was how it was. Fun fact: when the internet first came out, connecting to it required dialing your landline. This was a lengthy and trying procedure that often resulted in multiple attempts and when you finally got through it was the best feeling ever. But that is its own story, never to be spoken of again.
Back to the future part four
Glasses have been lost and other such important items but none other holds such God like importance as the cellular telephone, sad to say. What terror if you misplace it for a few minutes or leave it somewhere briefly, as though everyone of high importance are texting you the best things ever and there’s not a damn thing that can be done but stress about it. This is the world we inhabit and even for two fifteen year old girls, they know these feelings all too well.
I personally haven’t turned the house upside down in hopes of finding it. It’s here somewhere, dead and lying in utter abandon and morbid silence. I’ve given them time frames to deploy the dogs in hunt but they’ve come up short. I laid out that if anything of value is misplaced, I continue to search until I find but if they give up, they give up. They gave up.
Their “sweet sixteen” birthday is a mere eleven sleeps away and at this rate they can count their long list of cool gifts goodbye. One present now takes precedence and thy name is replacement cell phone. Ok, maybe some nail polish and a packet of Big League Chew to also open but that’s it.
So for now, as always it’s us against the world. But behind Oz’s curtain lies the battle of us against the landline. In the muck fighting telemarketers, perverts and wrong numbers. Yearning to check instagram but all I can do is push someones number. Needing to find ssomething upstairs but only allowed five feet from the phone jack. How will we survive such dark, tumultuous times such as these?
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