Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Can You Hear Me Now?

"Can you hear me now?"

"Good."

We all know this... we are all sick of this. Try living it. We have cell phones, from Verizon, and guess what? we can't hear A THING! There are so many areas that we have no reception... I would like to send that guy from the commercials here to test them... but nonetheless we know when we are going to drop a call, when we are going to lose reception, and when we need to just not call.

Tuesday morning, 8:30 a.m. driving down hwy 41 to Menomonee Falls. My phone always works here. After all, when you travel to big city, dumb phone works...

Guess what?

My phone rings... I answer.

"Hello?"

"Hello? Hello?"

"Hello? Can you hear me?"

click

I look at the number, it's a number from my kid's school.... instant panic sets in... my kids never call my cell phone and also - they knew I would be gone this morning.

I call the school back.

"Hello? This must be Sue... I can't hear you but I hope you hear me" the voice on the other end of the line says to me.

"Hello?" they say again.

"If you can hear me Sue, your son has been hurt and you need to get him to the doctor. His knee is badly swollen and he's in a lot of pain."

"I hope you can hear me."

Guess what? I heard her alright - but she couldn't hear a thing from me...

5 minutes later I arrive at a payphone and call the school back - I let her know that I am an hour away and they will have to call my son's father.

Everything turned out o.k. - my son? A sprained knee... .crutches, you know the routine...

But guess what? No one could hear me... it was horrible. My heart raced all morning. Stupid cell phones. What was life like before them? I bet that my son's father would have been called immediately. Instead, my baby had to sit at the school for an hour in pain before someone came and got him.

I wonder if Verizon would care.