Why must it be so difficult?

Cliff's youngest sister, Charlene, lives in St. Louis. Since they moved there, she tries to call me every Friday night, just to keep in touch.

Yesterday evening she called and asked what I'd been doing the past two Friday nights; she's called and left messages, and I haven't returned her calls.

Now I've been known to ignore messages on my phone, figuring the person will call me back if they want something. But I didn't remember doing this. In fact, I couldn't even think of a reason why I didn't just pick up the phone and answer; Cliff works evenings, and I don't drive. It's winter. Where would I be? Possibly the hot tub, because I do like sitting in the hot tub on a starry night. In fact, after I thought hard, I remembered that my daughter's girls spent last Friday night here, and the three of us did indeed spend some time in the spa.

Still, what happened to the messages?

So this morning I dialed my home number from my cell, to see what would happen. The home phone's answering message said its piece and beeped. Then a totally different answering message played on my cell, and beeped. I left some little message, but of course it wasn't going onto my home answering machine. Where on earth was it going?

Cliff said, "Why is it so hard to just get a simple telephone that works?"

"I don't think it's the phones causing the trouble," I answered. "It's us."

We just weren't meant for this technological time period.

So, I turned the answering machine off. It's all I know to do. But guess what? My cell still takes me to a voice mail when I call my home phone.