It was only a matter of time. It couldn't last forever. We've had twelve good years together. We were lucky to get that. It would be foolish to expect more.
Today I discovered that the battery in my cordless phone will no longer hold a charge. Not only that, this type of battery is no longer available. Newer batteries won't plug into the phone and their much higher current rating would fry it anyway.
Other than that, the phone/answering machine still works perfectly. The handset has this great hands-free mode that is not available with current handsets: it's big enough to clamp between my ear and shoulder without forcing me to crunch up like Richard III. The sound has always been crisp and clear, and the range is more than sufficient to cover my whole house and probably a good bit of the neighborhood.
This evening we went on a battery hunt. Oz made sure to pick stores which also had a good selection of phones. Some poor kid at Best Buy listened to my rant about "for want of a battery" and then sold us a silvery Panasonic phone system with four handsets, at about half the price of my old cordless phone.
It's the end of an era.
Just a couple weeks ago I got a call from a friend. When I didn't recognize her voice, she said, "Didn't you look at the screen?"
"'Screen'? What is this 'screen'? We are strictly low tech here, babe," I said with true Luddite pride.
No more. We have screens now.
But I refuse to spring for caller ID.
268 words | July 6, 2007 11:11 PM | Wired