One more strike against Technology

I called my mother today to make arrangements for their visit tomorrow. She was out so I got my dad, who was BESIDE himself with boredom.

At first I tried to rationalize with him that, although he was home alone this afternoon, mom would be home this evening and then TOMORROW they were coming to see me.

THAT didn’t work. He was bored NOW and not only was he bored, he was good old tug-on-the-heartstrings-LONELY.

So I suggested he see his friend Ed. Ed, as in the saintly man who lives around the corner and LOVES visiting dad and can spend hours sipping coffee and listening to his same stories over and over again without complaints.

“ED!!?!?” Dad grumpily exclaimed, “I haven’t talked to Ed in MONTHS!”
“Well, all the more reason to call him!”
“Bah - -I don’t have TIME. I have too many little things to do…”

(I guess he was forgetting his claim of boredom from 30 seconds ago…)

“What do you have to do today?”

“Well, I’m trying to call my old friend Wally London. We played football together in the 1940s.”

“Well that’s great! You SHOULD call him”

“I already tried once this morning and….well….I don’t know what happened…he picked up and said he was UNAVAILABLE at the moment and wanted me to leave a message. Isn’t that STUPID?”

“No Dad, that’s called an answering machine”

(Dad was too far into his rant to hear my last statement)

“…I mean what does he mean by unavailable…I keep HEARING that all the TIME when I call people”

“DAD!” I interrupted, “It’s called an ANSWERING MACHINE”

“Oh….WELL…I think it’s ANNOYING.”

I pointed out to him that he was really making himself seem OLD and CRANKY, not knowing what an ANSWERING machine was. He thought about this for a minute before breaking into a chuckle..

“Yes, well…I suppose I am…”