Carol’s Column

Who's hanging up on life?

SQUAT, white and noisy, it's wrecking my life.

The phone, not my mother-in-law.

It never stops ringing and it's driving me up the wall. And the irony is I can still remember how we battled to get a phone.

When we moved into our house 20 years ago, there was no phone. In fact there was no plug or cable either.

Our predecessors, an elderly couple, had resorted to smoke signals and semaphore when communicating with the outside world.

I was not undistressed at the lack of phone. "Don't worry," said the estate agent in the pushy, piranha-type way they have when they're trying to clinch a sale, "you'll get a phone at the flick of a finger."

Three years later, my finger was still flicking.

I filled in countless forms, wrote countless letters and received innumerable replies.

"Dear Mrs Lazar, your letter is receiving due attention from the authorities." Or "Dear Mrs Lazar, we have forwarded your request to the appropriate authorities. We trust you shall receive a phone during the 20th century." Or "Dear Mrs Lazar, Be patient. To wait two years for a phone is nothing. We have people on our lists who have waited for 10 years. Patience is a virtue."

And then, in one week, we gave birth to our third son and a phone. The two happy events happened within hours of each other. We cracked a bottle of champagne to celebrate and held an impromptu party.

We placed an ad in the paper saying "To Robin and Carol Lazar, a handsome phone. Mother and phone doing well."

That was 16 years ago.

Today things are different. Slowly, insidiously, the phone has taken over my life. Of the cricket variety, it chirps unceasingly from dawn to dusk and then some.

Last Monday at 4 am while snuggling in my chicken down duvet, I was rudely woken by the insistent chirp.

"No, this is not Sarieta Poggenpoel," I shrieked down the line. "No, I cannot wake Kobus Poggenpoel, he's not lying beside me. What do you mean who's lying beside me? It's none of your business."

Typical.

And yet, in a true emergency, the phone is always out of order.

When Barry smashed his front teeth, when Ralph got stung by a swarm of bees, when Liquorice the labrador gave birth to 12 pups, when the sewer pipe burst, our phone was out of order.

Crossed lines are par for the course. On Wednesday I dialled Agatha Crump in Bloemfontein. "Hi," a voice answered, "This is Big Dwayne Rockerfeller Junior in Phoenix, Arizona."

In this household of six, there is only one person who answers the phone and I'm getting tired.

Not that you can ever get through. With four kids, the line is always busy.

We've tried everything. Banning calls during mealtimes. No calls before 7 am and after 10 pm. Three-minute time limits, eggtimers, gongs, guns. To no avail.

The other day I had to chip Jamie off the phone with a chisel. "So who was that?" I asked finally.

"Ag, Ma," it was a wrong number that's why we only chatted for two hours."

And then I received a four-man delegation with Nicky, my youngest unmarried daughter as spokesperson.

"Ma," she said, "we are the only family in Johannesburg without two phones. Everybody who is anybody has two phones. You are depriving us of opportunities by limiting us to one phone.

"If we have two phones you will have one line, we will have the other. You'll be able to use yours whenever you like and whenever its not busy," added Jamie.

I shuddered.

Do you know, there is a fine of R500 for tampering with post office equipment. It is worth every cent.

Today, for the first time in 16 years I did not have to take 23 messages, get out of a hot bath to answer a ring that expired as I got there, have seven wrong numbers, three crossed lines.

Squat and white, the phone, not my mother-in-law, has been planted among the daffodils where it is thriving.

May we all rest in peace.

■