Connected

After a couple of years of not having a cell phone or a phone at home for that matter, I finally was pressured decided to get a cheap Tracfone this week. My father, apparently no longer able to stand the “inconvenience” of not being able to contact me whenever he wanted (by the way he lives six houses away from us), gifted me some money for Christmas for the express purpose of buying a cell phone.

I am notorious for being hard to reach. It causes people at church quite a bit of frustration. My motto always was “the phone is for my convenience, not yours”. We always had a landline phone at home until I got mad at AT&T and left them for Vonage. Then we had an issue with our internet provider, and although that was solved after a couple of months, out went our Vonage. Two years ago, with the flurry of activity surrounding the start of Joel’s business, we managed to run-up our cell phone bill into the four-figures and so we descended into the abyss of phone non-communication.

It has been amusing although sometimes embarrassing to see people’s reaction when they find out I do not have a phone. It ranges from pity to bewilderment. If in the same conversation, the fact that I do not have a credit card comes out, it is enough to make some people pass-out. My daughter in Kindergarten has two things she has to work on before being ready for First Grade: tying her shoes and learning her phone number. Her teacher shot me a look of disbelief when I explained the reason she did not know her phone number yet.

In all seriousness, it is kind of liberating to get home and not have to deal with the phone ringing or go out shopping and not feel like you are wearing an electronic monitoring device. Yes, sometimes it has proven inconvenient, and finding a public phone is not an easy task anymore, as is trying to find change in my purse, but we survived!

I do have to say that my poor deprived girls were very excited with my refurbished new acquisition and for the last two days Natalie has found it more exciting to play the low tech games on my phone than playing with her Nintendo DS. She calls it the “Minivan Phone” because of the Motorola logo “M” on the front.

So yes, I am back, sort of. To help us ease into it, right now the number is only available to those with Top Secret Clearance. You might interrupt a game of “Space” if you call us.