Our "emergency phone"

This time it's final. We did not learn our lesson the first time. We will be getting the sledge hammer ready.My wife and I really hate cell phones. We think they are the scourge of the 21st century.

Gone are the days when we could say, "865J3 and you could talk to your neighbor with 7 other families listening in if you were on a "party line". The phone rang once if it was for you, twice if it was someone else on the party line. If they talked to long you shouted, " get off the line, you've been on for ten minutes. I have to call aunt Tessie."

Life is so different now. Everyone seems to be in their cellphone "bubble". They are totally unaware that they are surrounded by people or vehicles. You hear some strange loud conversations. It can get really weird. I heard something like this. "Hey Linda, I am at Walmart. The boil on my ass broke last night and I am getting some medical stuff. Do you need anything? Beano and four cartons of Depends? Hold on a second. I have to turn down the volume on the speaker phone."

Don't they know there are other people in the area? I guess not.

Someone actually walked across my back on the beach while talking on a cell phone.

I shouted "HEY!!!" Wow, did I get a dirty look for interrupting his conversation.

I have heard of instances where they have rang in court rooms, church, in the doctor's office despite the signs that tell you to turn off your cellphone or do not use it. People ignore it.

Wouldn't it be ironic if a person smashed into a phone booth while talking on a cellphone. It won't happen. There aren't many phone booths left to smash a vehicle into. I have seen cars go over a curb with a woman talking on the phone. She didn't signal for a turn. How could she? She only had two hands. I could go on endlessly about how good manners went out the window in the age of the cellphone. But lets talk about my cellphone.

We got our first cellphone for an emergency. It was a cheap Tracfone made by Nokia.

It actually worked pretty good. The problem started with the voice mail. People were leaving messages on our voice mail and using up our minutes. This was happening many times a day. They would tell to call "Nigel in Liverpool for a very important message." We tried to track who was making these calls with no success. They were just eating up our minutes with bogus phone calls. We never got to speak to anyone and our minutes disappeared. After our minutes were gone we put the hammer to the Tracfone.

One day we thought; we need a phone for an emergency situation. No voice mail. We bought a Tracfone. This time it was made by Motorola. It took an act of god to activate it.

We talked to customer support in Honduras, Indonesia, Nepal and Bolivia. The Bolivians were helpful. they said, "What were you thinking, buying another Tracfone?"

I told them I couldn't find a network. They told me to go out, stand on my roof and face northeast. IT WORKED!!!...

The other problem is the batteries stay charged for only 7 minutes. Then it starts saying things like, "help me! help me! I'm dying." I am a problem solver. I ran an extension cord from the bedroom to the roof. It is on continuous life support. IT WORKED.

Life is good.

Wait a minute. Do I hear the cellphone ringing? We have a tin roof!!!! It's raining!!!!

This better be important. Be right back.