Landlines of Yesteryear

“I made an executive decision.” she said, with such confidence that I shuddered to think of knowing exactly what that decision was. “I am going to have a phone like you guys. Three of them. I ordered a cell phone. Well, three of them.” I had a lot to process and needed to start at the very beginning. “What do you mean?” I asked as I backed onto the couch for what I knew would be at least a half hour conversation. “Well, I canceled the landline and I am switching to a cell phone. But because I have three handsets, I asked for three cell phones.” The pieces started to come together. There were three handsets of our cordless home landline, Mom wanted three cell phones to replace them. Except, of course, that makes absolutely no sense. You and I know this, this is not that obvious to one who began their journey pre-World War II. I poured myself a glass of her wine.

Relieved that she hadn’t just bought a one way ticket to Budapest or bought a new piece of furniture, I sipped the buttery Chardonnay as she retold the events that led to her looooong conversation with Xfiniti over a discrepancy in her bill which ultimately led to the decision to reduce said bill by eliminating the landline. “So, exactly how many cell phones are on their way?” I asked, hoping to hear a better answer than three. “Well, one for now and I’m thinking I’ll need two more.” I put a stop to that, right away. “Nope. Just one. You now have to be like one of these Gen Zers and have that one phone glued to your hand at all times.” Light started to dawn. “Oh, that’s right. You guys don’t have more than one.” “Nope, we don’t. This is why you’re always making fun of us with the phone always near us.” “Well, at any rate, the phone’s not working anymore.” I checked, no dial tone on the handset. For the first time since 1972, Mom was without access to her listed phone number for years. It felt….strange.

“Hi all-Mom has made the bold move (unbeknownst to me) to cut off her landline and replace it with Xfiniti mobile. However, because she wished to keep her phone number, we are still waiting for this changeover to take place despite her receiving he shiny new Samsung Galaxy. I am actively searching for a case to make said cell phone feel and look more like a landline. Stay tuned. If you need to reach Mary, or if anyone needs to reach Mary, you may forward those calls to me.” This was the text I sent to my siblings following my discovery and foray into introducing Mom to the 21st century of telecommunication. Never had any of us not been able to call that number and get “home”. I felt as though we had lost a precious old tree, I can’t explain it any better than that. It felt…significant. The process to get the cell phone up and running on our old number took longer than we had anticipated. When it was finally done, we now had to teach Mom/Nana how to use this brick of a phone. We tried the voice set up, that was a disaster. The “keypad” on a smart phone is not intuitive to those of our greatest generation. “Where are the buttons, Steph?” Mom asked, as if I had something to do with their disappearance. “Ah” I said to myself. “She has to know click for a keypad. That’s a lot.”

As the weeks have passed, Mom has slowly started to learn how to use her new smartphone. Text messages being one of the first new delights, Maire delighted in spam texting Nana one night just for fun. “Skibidi” Maire named the text thread. “Skibidi? What is Skibidi??” Mom asked. “Oh my God, I would explain but both you and I would lose brain cells in the process and neither of us can afford that so let’s just say it’s complete nonsense.” I told Mom which satisfied her as it implied both of us have no clue. Mom was crying laughing one night, reading the silly texts from Maire who found more and more ways to entertain her 90-year-old twin of a grandmother (they’re eerily similar). It seems that this change, wrought with bumps and hiccups still, has been a positive one on the whole—a weird little wormhole between the generations that we never thought possible. Change, though awkward and heavy-footed, is both inevitable and good.

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