The Amazing, Mystifying, Puzzling Telephone....

My little family has always had "issues" with the telephone. For some reason, I am the only one who hears the darn thing ring. Also, unless, specifically asked/confronted, knowledge of someone calling our abode isn't always forthcoming. The first two issues are shared by my husband and me: when we added our daughter to the mix, things got a whole lot more interesting.

When I was my daughter's age (12), I used to gab on the phone with my friends all of the time. If we weren't in each other's physical space, we were on the phone. From the time that she was quite young, I have encouraged her to call a friend herself (after clearing plans with me, of course) to initiate a playdate. The whole scene would go down like this:

Child: "IIIIIII'mmmmmm boooorrrred!"

Mother: "Why don't you call a friend to have over? I can drive one way."

Child: "What if someone answers the phhoonneee?"

Mother: "That's kind of how those devices work, dear."

Child: "Whhaaat dooo IIIII saaayyyy theeeennn?"

Mother: "I've instructed you on phone manners for years (sigh). Introduce yourself to whoever answers, and then ask for ___."

(Child turns on her heel, and leaves the room)

Mother: "Where are you going? Aren't you going to call someone?"

Child: "Nevermind"

Knowing well that my daughter had "issues" with using a phone, I still felt that she should get a cell phone for the start of Middle School. We had a nice "family trip" to the Sprint Store to obtain a most pleasing communication device. Here were the highlights:

Mother: "Well, let's see what they have here. See anything you like?"

Child: "I like THAT one! It's pink and looks like a Blackberry! Cool!" (Father has a Blackberry that he's leashed to for work)

(Mother, Father, and Daughter go to find a helpful Sprint Associate to "close the deal")

Mother ( to Sprint Guy): "Hi, we'd like to get our daughter this phone here, and then add her to our plan. I would like you to disable texting and the internet on her phone, please."

Sprint Guy: "( glazed-over stare of disbelief, as getting rid of said features is just unheard of. He looks over at Daughter with a sympathetic look, as, obviously, Mother is just so clueless)"

Daughter: (in a mildly huffy tone) "If I can't text with it, what's the point of having a cell phone?"

Mother: "It's a phone... you can use it to reach Father or me in an emergency... with your actual voice!"

(Child looks at Sprint Guy, who is powerless to do anything but Mother's bidding- darn!!)

Turns out that within the first couple months of school, daughter actually used her voice on her phone to summon me back to school to get her, as a power outage closed down the school. Since then, powered only by sweet tween voice, the lovely pink "blackberry" is sporting some pretty serious dust...

Yesterday, the phone issues took quite the humorous turn. Daughter has a good friend, who is a guy. They have been friends for about two years now. Although they were in the same homeroom in 5th Grade (and saw each other for most of the day), they only were in one class this year, for all of 7 weeks. Because her friend's parents are divorced, he travels between homes; therefore, there are twice as many homes to call in order to locate him, and (gulp) twice as many people who could possibly answer a phone (gasp). Because of "parental cruise directing", they have been able to get together this year w/o having to use a phone. Recently, Daughter got wind of the fact that he had a cell phone. Now things became interesting:

Child: "Mom, I think I'd like to have ___'s cell phone number. Can you get it from his Mom?"

Mother: "Here's her number, you can call."

Child: "(Blank, horrified look. She expects ME to initiate phone contact????)"

Mother: "Oh, for heaven's sake already! Do you want to send an e-mail to her?"

Child: (smile creeps across her face, voice-to-voice contact can be avoided)"Yes."

So, Daughter wrote a nice e-mail, and sent it off to her friend's Mom. The next day in school, her friend asked her if she got his cell number, appearing not to mind that she had "the digits". When she got home from school, I showed her where I wrote it down, for her use. This, of course, led to the nosy/stupid "Mother Question of the Day":

Mother: "So, are you going to give him a buzz?"

Child: "Why would I do that? What am I supposed to say?"

Mother: "YOU...just...requested...HIS...phone...number!!!! When the two of you get together, you talk non-stop! I don't know! Ask about how his soccer is going... talk about school... you know, STUFF!"

Child: "Aren't girls not supposed to call boys?"

Mother: (taking a deep breath)"I don't believe that's a guideline for this time in history on Planet Earth!"

Child: (walking out of the room) "Oh."

I feel sorry for the poor kid. He's probably wondering why his friend went out of her way to get his phone number, and then didn't call. What would I say to him? I would just tell him that in our family, "phone issues" are genetic!