Thursday 22 July 2010

Search and Rescue Mission - somebody had to do it...

An unnatural happy sound rings out, bordering on one hit wonder potential, with full-on cheerfulness. This sound is so super happy, I am in danger of needing anti-depressant pills.

I am at home but this sound is not a homely sound. It is not a familiar sound. It is what....

It is the family phone, it must be the family phone, but I am in surreal world it does not sound like my family phone, that I left home sounding adult-like steady sedate purring sound this morning. It now chirrups, by God and all things sane, it chirrups. It has been modified, updated, corrupted, it has been teenaged. But by gum at least the teenagers showed that thay had conquered a technology barrier, changing telephone dial tone is scientific challenge, methinks. Part of me should be proud, if only my ears agreed.

It used to be the parent's phone, our phone, some 5 or 7 years ago. Now the dial tone has been de-aged. It is now a ditty dedicated to an upbeat mood in a downbeat world, a phone that says I am young fresh and its pa..aaaarty time.

I am afraid. I am old. I need advanced warning of a party time, let alone paaa...rty time.

The phone rings and it is leapt on by a daughter who knows statistically the likelihood it is for her, is a winning bet. It is now a teenager phone. And it was indeed for her, she de-camps in a matter of seconds to a bedroom to discuss non-parent things.

In years gone by, if the family phone occasionally rang, I answered it and sometimes it was a good chance it was for me. The monthly bill reflected the odd long distance phone home, now it is full of local-children-gone-wild seconds becoming minutes becoming hours.

It is a phone in fear of dying, it is a phone that gets lost in a bedroom I am forbidden to enter upon threat of pouting, but be damned the phone needs rescuing from the melee of clothes, books and half digested food. It is a phone needing volts like I need inner peace. The phone needs its battery like I need to touch base with my inner calm. The phone needs me to survive. I am the man on a search and rescue mission.

The daughter is having a bath. A mobile phone is drawn, the family home number zapped. I hear a faint too happy to be true sound. I enter the teenager zone and by God it is ....dangerous, I could trip on things that I never wished to see. The chirrupping guides me but a daughter may hear it above the sound of gushing water, she may think a friend is phoning her, she may catch me in an exclusion zone. The phone is near, but unseen. It sounds terrifyingly loud in a Eurovision winner sort of way. A daughter hears it, and knows it must be for her, it always is, I am in danger of being caught. I am in danger of the Pout. I am afraid to advise the Pout can kill conversations dead. The Pout is a dangerous weapon. My daughter owns the Pout like I own facial wrinkles. I grapple with clothes, I thread a path to release a phone in captivity. I escape. I switch off a mobile phone and a daughter returns to cleanliness and a question was it for me.

"No it was for me" - I did not lie. I smirked in a clever dick fashion that demanded an audience for my wit.

And a phone is revived with electricity in its Living room Cradle.

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