Opinion

Can you hear me now?

Friday, August 31, 2007

We are in a day and age when everything is digital and nothing seems to work.  Not that many years ago, when I used a pen and a piece of paper to write a letter, the only thing that could go wrong was that your pen might run out of ink.  Although that was a pain, you didn't have to call someone to have it fixed.  After all, a pen wasn't a huge investment.  If it stopped working, you threw it away and got another one.

When you write your letters by using a keyboard and a screen, if something stops working, and it eventually will, most people don't even know why, much less how to make it work again.  It's not as if you can simply throw it out and get a new one.  If it is possible to muddle along without the "g" key working, most of us do.  We simply use a different key, like "q" or we try to write the letter with no words containing the letter "g"… Somehow we manage.

The only time I panic is when nothing shows up on the screen at all.  It's like my refrigerator dying.   I don't know how to live without it anymore. 

My biggest pet peeve in the world of electronic gizmos is my cell phone.  Okay, it's not just my cell phone, it's everyone's cell phone.  It seems there is always a problem with them, especially if one person is on the move.  If that person hits a "dry patch" on the cell phone highway, the conversation is going to be a lot like watching a foreign movie without subtitles.  You have to fill in the blanks between the words you can understand.

My husband uses a cell phone for much of the day because his job requires him to be on the road.  Sometimes he simply calls me to hear my voice.  I think this is wonderful, because some husbands either can't call because of their work schedule or they simply don't care to hear the voice of the woman they married...for whatever reason makes sense to you.  What is not wonderful is the fact that he has to contact me with a digitally flawed piece of equipment.

I had to paint my son's room yesterday, so the night before, my husband and I had taken apart the bed and moved it out of the room.  When it came time to put the bed back together again, I couldn't find the screws.  I called him on the cell phone, but as it happens, I heard that irritating female voice telling me that he cannot be reached and that I should leave a message.  There are few things worse than calling your husband and having a female voice answer his phone.  I asked her to tell him to call me.

Eventually, I found the screws, but of course, my husband didn't know that.  When he called me back I explained, "I was trying to put the bed back together and I couldn't find the screws. But I've found them now."

I heard a "Wha", and then a beep and the screen on my cell phone said that the call was lost.  Being "lost" usually means that the missing item can be found again at some point, but they don't even give you that option.  You simply have to hang up and try again later.  Well, I thought, at least he knows I don't need to talk to him now.

A few seconds later, he called again. He spent the entire 60 second phone call saying, "Can you hear me now?"  and I spent it saying, "Yes… no… wait a minute… you're breaking up."  I sang the theme song to Gilligan's Island very badly for testing purposes and imagined him whacking his phone against something to make it stop.  Then the call went into cyberspace again.

He called an irritating six times with similarly inane conversations before we finally got a good connection.

He asked, "Now what did you try to say before?"

I repeated my explanation for the first call and he said, "Oh."  It sounded like he was very disappointed.  I asked him what was wrong.

He said, "Well, what you said and what I heard were two totally different things."

Apparently, what he heard was "Bed….together…now."

No wonder he called me back so many times.

-- You can reach Laura at lsnyder@lauraonlife.com Or visit her website www.lauraonlife.com for more columns and info about her new book.

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