Carol’s Column

C’mon, plug into a whole new way of life

SQUAT and green and noisy, it’s wrecking my life.

The phone, not my mother-in-law.

It never stops ringing, it’s driving me up the wall.

And the irony is, I can still remember how long it took to get a phone and how I battled in those days of no cables.

When we moved into this house 15 years ago, there was no phone. In fact there was no plug either.

Our predecessors, an elderly couple, had used morse code, semaphore and smoke signals to communicate with the rest of the world.

I remember how distressed I was when I discovered the lack of a phone.

“Don’t worry,” the estate agent had replied, “the superficial trappings of modernisation can be acquired with the flick of a finger.”

She was referring to the [TEXT LOST IN PHOTOCOPY] that we had no indoor [TEXT LOST IN PHOTOCOPY] electricity, hot water [TEXT LOST IN PHOTOCOPY] persistence and perseverance, we finally gave birth to a phone.

It was round about the birth of my third son.

I can still remember the party we gave to celebrate the event. Of the phone, not the baby.

We cracked a bottle of champagne and named it fondly.

I even put a notice in the classified section of the paper. “Born to Rob and Carol Lazar, a handsome phone. Mother and phone doing fine. Our grateful thanks to all concerned.”

That was 12 years ago.

Today things are different.

Slowly, insidiously, that green instrument has taken over our lives.

Of the cricket variety, it chirps unceasingly from six in the morning to midnight.

For instance, last Wednesday night I’d just snuggled to sleep in my drip-dry, acrylic imitation goose-down duvet (so real even the goose couldn’t tell the difference), when the phone rang.

I looked at my watch — good heavens, who could be calling in the early hours of the morning?

“Hello, hello,” I croaked. “No, this is not Humphrey Tuttle. No, you have the wrong number. I beg your pardon? I cannot call Humphrey Tuttle, I’ve never heard of him.”

By now, I was wide-awake and furious. Typical.

On the odd occasion, when I have desperately needed a phone in a real emergency, such as when Liquorice-the-labrador gave birth to 14 puppies, or Jamie broke his front teeth, or the sewerage pipe got blocked — it was out of order and I had to resort to my neighbour’s instead.

But, I will admit, it is a source of entertainment. There is nothing quite like a crossed line to brighten up your day.

Why only last Monday, while dialling Bloemfontein, I inadvertently got through to somebody else.

“Hello, is this Poppie van Diggelen in Bloemfontein?” I shouted.

“No, Ma’am. This is Horace Hawke of Tuscan, Arizona, here,” a voice replied. It had a distinct American twang. Somewhere along the line, I’d missed Bloemfontein.

Mind you, I guess that can happen to anyone.

Furthermore, in this household of six, there is only one person who answers the phone and believe me, I’m getting tired.

Now, a new problem has reared its head.

With four children, our phone is constantly engaged.

We’ve tried everything. Limiting calls to three minutes, banning calls during mealtimes, no calls before 7am and 10pm. To no avail.

Last night Jamie monopolised the phone for two hours. He only got off when I prised the receiver out of his hand with a chisel.

“So, who was that?” I asked with some asperity.

“I don’t know,” he replied, “it was a wrong number so we only chatted for a little while.”

Yesterday, I was confronted by my children as we sat down to breakfast.

“Ma,” said my second, youngest, unmarried son. He is always delegated to speak on behalf of the panel. “Do you know what the latest status symbol in Johannesburg is?”

“No,” I whispered huskily. Experience has made me wary.

“We need another phone. One is not enough.”

“But we have two phones, one upstairs, one downstairs.”

“No,” continued Ralph, “we need another line. One for you, one for us. If we had our own phone, you’d be able to use yours whenever you liked.

I shuddered.

Did you know there is a R500 fine for tampering with Post Office property?

That fine is worth every cent.

Today, for the first time in 12 years, I didn’t have to take 14 messages, get out of a hot bath to answer a ring that dropped dead as I got there, have three wrong numbers and two crossed lines, and wake up in the middle of the night for Japan or Australia.

Squat and green, the phone not my mother-in-law, has been planted among the tulips and anemones where it is growing nicely.

Peace, blissful peace.

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