Thinking Out Loud

By Gerard Meister

Readers who follow my misadventures with things mechanical must have applauded my preliminary success with the cell phone. And though I still don't know how I managed to live without one until a few months ago, a recent happening with that little marvel makes me wonder if I spoke too soon.

When we first got the phone, my wife was always with me to handle the intricacies of answering a call, retrieving messages and the like. All that changed early this past December when my better half had to go to Boston for medical treatment. I can't say enough about Massachusetts General, it's as good a hospital as there is and the surgery worked out well; Marilyn is as good as new, if not better. But because she convalesced for ten days as an outpatient at a hotel close by the hospital, it was inevitable that the cell phone and I would be thrown together; just me and the cell phone. Here's what happened:

I nipped out of the hotel one morning to get a couple of coffees at Starbucks. It was positively frigid and I bundled up with my heavy winter coat, scarf, hat and thick wool gloves. Naturally, my wife insisted I take the phone, "in case of an emergency."

What kind of emergency could I have, I wondered to myself, walking the half-block to Starbucks and back, but I know better than to protest my wife's unerring judgment, so off I went. Starbucks went smoothly; two containers of piping hot java safely latched onto a cardboard carrying tray. I was not ten paces out the door when the phone rang. Understand that nothing in modern life is as imperative as a ringing phone; I had to answer it, but because of the howling wind I was carrying the tray with both hands. I tried to put the tray down on the sidewalk so I could take my gloves off, but was not agile enough; bending at the waist not one of my strong points, one of the containers tipped out of the tray and spilled all over the sidewalk. "Well, what the heck," I thought, as I fumbled for the phone; "one out of two's not that bad; Marilyn'll have her coffee!"

By this time I had, of course, missed the call and, because I hadn't taken my reading glasses with me, had no clue how to retrieve a message or find out who called. "Too late now," I thought to myself, as I picked up the tray and resumed my journey, only this time I put the phone in the tray. (Maybe I'm not handy, but my mother didn't raise stupid children.) Now nothing could stop me from my appointed rounds (or so I thought when the phone rang again). "Aha, gotcha," I murmured as I began tearing a glove off with my teeth. And I was nearly there, actually had the phone in my right hand when a gust of wind howled right off the Atlantic and tore the tray from my grasp. I reacted with cat like quickness and would have caught that second container as it flew by, had I not been wearing those cheap poly-wool gloves from Wal Mart.

There was no one on the phone again, so I thought it best to abandon the coffee quest and get back so my wife could check the dropped calls, after all, it might have been an emergency. But it wasn't an emergency, just our son Stephen calling to say he was too busy to talk now and would call us later. Marilyn still wanted coffee, so I ordered a carafe and a couple of fat-free blueberry muffins from room service. We did get to Starbucks the next night after dinner for espresso and a decaf. When the phone rang she didn't move a muscle, just kept sipping her coffee. "Aren't you going to answer it?" I asked, nervously.

"Nah," she said, in between sips. "I'll call back later."