Hello, is this the party to whom I'm speaking?

One thing that is unusual about our family is that until today, we had no cell phone. We had no cell phone when we drove across the country to bring home KC and later Elisabeth. We intended to get a throwaway phone for those trips but the calls for our children came at unexpected times and we didn't have a chance to get them.

Our families were horrified. Imagine driving from MA to IL with no cell phone. Seriously, we were treated like we were hiking into the Wilderness with only a spare pair of undies in our packs or something. It was ludicrous. I told everyone who was worried that everyone else in the country had a cell phone and I was sure in an emergency someone could be prevailed upon to call a tow truck, or 9-1-1 or something. (Picture me in my best imitation of Blanche DuBois saying "I rely on the kindness of strangers."

Years passed. Family kept hounding us to get a cell phone. K and I looked at our finances and it was not in the budget. Totally not in the budget. And still not a necessity. I sit by a phone all day at work. I also work very close to home. We are talking a 3 mile commute. If I can't handle an emergency 3 miles from home, I need more help than a cell phone can provide. LOL

OK so there is the story of why we had no cell phone. Now how we got it. It was a case of doing something nice for someone and having them repay you with another kindness later, in an unexpected way. I have a disabled tenant who more than a year ago had a financial crisis. Since this person had no family in the area, I was the confidante to his fiscal mistakes. And privy to the knowledge that his access to food was limited. About that time we had a big family party and i had a ton of meat left over. I am vegetarian and the meat was not going to get used by our family any time soon. So I asked my tenant to help me by taking the meat, under the guise of cleaning out my freezer so that i could put in my garden produce. This wasn't a total fabrication. We were putting veggies by that year. He, I think, saw through the thin veil of prevarication but the story left him with some dignity in the exchange and he agreed to take the food.

He has visited me at least twice weekly at the office since. Usually to share his take on an unusual new story or some urban legend. It is sort of like talking to Chet and I don't mind. In amidst the discussions of whether BigFoot lives under a bridge in our local city I try and sandwich in suggestions on how to apply for various services that would prevent the kind of crisis he was in a year ago.

Today he came up to show me his new cell phone and asked me about one of the features. I explained that this was one area where I was useless to him because I had no cell phone. He smiled and said actually that was why he had asked. He thought it rude to ask me outright, but it would help his ego, he said, if I would consider taking his old phone. He had to get a new one because the buttons were hard to read on his former one and his eyesight wasn't what it once had been. He told me I would need to buy minutes and I said that was no problem. He immediately went home and got me the phone pictured above. (didn't I center it artistically on the cable converter box??) I put some minutes on it and spent 16 seconds of the first 120 minutes calling K to tell her the phone worked. Then I hung up. I never gave her the number. Which explains why she couldn't call me and tell me to buy Italian bread to have with the pasta tonight!