It happens in my house, like maybe fifty times a day! That's how many times it seems that the phone rings.
"The phone's ringing! Where's the phone?" I yell.
"I don't know," one of the boys yells without even looking away from
the Gamecube action on TV. "You had it last," he points to little
sister.
"I had it then I gave it to you," she accuses another older brother.
The phone rings the second time. The cordless receiver is MIA... again.
"You had it in your room, didn't you?" I ask the middle son.
Then comes the third ring. Still no phone.
"I put it back and then he took it." He points to his younger
brother, like a dramatic witness identifying a defendant during a trial.
Finally, the fourth ring triggers the answering machine: "Hi, you've reached the Herreras..."
Callers always reach our house, but don't always reach the actual
people in the house. We're always scrambling to find the
phone. It is never where it's supposed to be when not in use - IN
THE STINKIN' BASE RECHARGING. Instead of being in the stinkin'
base, the phone is between couch cushions, on the floor, inside shoes,
or in one of the kids' bedrooms.
With the age of cordless phones comes the age of misplaced receivers.
My wife and I thought we solved the phone problem a few months ago when
we bought this high tech gizmo at Costco. This not-so-cheap model
came with one base and THREE PHONES. That was the solution... three
phones! Not two, but three! Our problems would be
solved. We got home and I immediately installed the base in the
kitchen, put one phone in the master bedroom and the third in the
garage. Putting an extension in the garage was a stroke of
genius, I figured. The boys are always in there lifting weights,
playing ping-pong or hiding from chores.
Yes, three phones with an extension in the garage was the answer to our
phone shortage... NOT. It seems that having three cordless phones
now means we have three phones to lose at any one time.
We find phones on the piano. Under the kids' pillows. In
the spare bathrooms. Lying on the stairs. On top of the
mantle. We even find phones in clusters, two and sometimes three
lying next to each other in someone's room. At night, after the
kids go to bed, we gather up the phones and put them in their chargers
so that they are ready for misplacement the next day.
The phones end up in all kinds of weird places, but not one of our four
children is ever guilty of misplacing them. Apparently, someone
sneaks in and callously scattered phones throughout our house. It
must be the same person who tosses shoes and socks on the carpet like
confetti during a victory parade.
The only real solution is to return to the good old days when houses
had only one phone. It was black, weighed ten pounds and had an
industrial cable connecting the receiver to the base. The kind of
phone your Grandmother had. The kind of phone you would never,
ever find in someone's sock drawer.
I should consult my sister about this. She has saved just about
everything from our younger days. She has old dishes, cookie jars
and keepsakes from our old home. I wonder if she has our old
jet-black, battleship rotary phone. I'll call her and ask as soon
as I can find a phone. Maybe there's one in the freezer.
Tim is the author of "From Wedgies to Feeding
Frenzies: A Semi-Survival Guide for Parents of Teens." To learn more
about the book, email Tim at
or log onto his website at www.timherrera.com.
