January 22, 2004

• Today, we are blessed with many conveniences which make our lives so much easier.

  Do you have a cordless phone? Not a cell phone, one of those phones that sits on a base that plugs into a phone jack, but the phone itself has no cord, so you can move around freely while you talk? We have 2 of them, one in the kitchen and one in the bedroom.

  Cordless phones are a good thing. They let you stir the soup or clean the toilet while you talk. They also let you set the phone down in odd places when you are finished talking so that you can enjoy a little scavenger hunt looking for it. The base has a little button that lets you make the phone ring, which is supposed to help you find it. That supposes that the phone is somewhere where it can be heard while you are standing at the base. Of course, if the phone is on a different level of the house or under the couch cushions, that may be a bit of a problem.

  My husband loves our cordless phones. He is concerned for their welfare. Knowing that all creatures like to commune with their own kind, he thoughtfully leaves them both in the same place so they can spend a little time together. For the sake of the phones’ happiness, he is willing to endure the inconvenience this causes. I mean, what is more important, the presence of a phone in each area of the house so we can hear and answer calls easily, or the companionship of the phones themselves? We must, after all, have values!

  Another wonder of modern life is the drive up bank teller. Now, I know that everyone on the planet has had drive up bank windows for 30 years or more, but in our little town, they are a brand new thing. I used ours yesterday to make a bank deposit and cash a check. There was someone already at the main window, so I chose one of the two stations that uses a pneumatic tube to send the paperwork in to the teller. That gives the illusion of a three teller operation. You know, no waiting. That would be wrong! In actuality, there is only one teller for the three windows, so I had to wait with only the now empty tube for company while the person in the other car applied for a mortgage. Some people just don’t get the concept of quick transactions!

  After my little rest stop at the bank, I thought that I deserved a treat, so I stopped off at the bakery to get a roll. Our bakery bakes for a college in a nearby town, so it is much busier than you would expect in a town this size. The staff does not man the sales area all the time because they are needed in the back to help with production. They do provide a large viewing window and an equally large open archway so they can see the customer area. There is also a little gold bell that you can pick up and ring in case they do not see you. Right! That bell is like trying to get a jack hammer operator’s attention by dropping a pin. All of those industrial mixers and metal pans create quite a racket! So, after ringing the bell and calling to the people I could see just a few feet away from me happily kneading dough and frosting rolls, I gave up on the idea of a treat and went on my way.

  Yup, modern life is so convenient!

  • 9:09 am
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