Yello!

I like my new telephone, my computer works just fine, my calculator is perfect, but Lord, I miss my mind! ~Author Unknown

Something strange was happening at our dinner table tonight. We kept hearing intermittent beeping noises similar to the warning you might hear when the battery on a smoke detector was running low. We looked around the room, unsure of what could be making the sound. Until we started searching for the offending appliance, we didn’t realize just how many items of technology we had surrounded ourselves with. Was the annoying beeping noise coming from the wireless phone? The TV or remote? Maybe it was the new digital photo frame? Francis’ cell phone on the counter? The clock or the radio? Perhaps a stopwatch or something in the drawers? Could it be the old smoke detector stored in the cupboard? One by one we kept ruling out possible sources of the noise. The odd thing was that the sound seemed to move from place to place in the room… it seemed impossible to pinpoint exactly where it was coming from. Scratching our heads, we decided the strawberry shortcake dished up on the table took precedence over whatever it was that was producing the beep and sat back down to enjoy dessert. There it goes again… beep, beep, beep some more. Finally, Kalie said, “Mom, is there something in your pocket?” I reached into the big front pocket of my hoodie and, guess what? My cell phone was there complaining of a low battery! I’d forgotten I’d stashed it there to free up a hand to carry in groceries from the car earlier. Geez! Now it made sense why the noise kept moving around the room! We had a good laugh and the mystery was solved. 🙂

Having to leave town yesterday afternoon for a couple of days in Kearney at a teacher’s meeting, I was lucky enough to get to drive the school’s new 2006 Suburban. Before I even got out on the highway, I was checking out all the cool features it had. I found you could change the radio station and adjust the volume by pushing controls on the steering wheel. There are also buttons to push that will give you information about the tire pressure and condition of the motor oil! I tried out all the buttons just to see what they were. There was a button on the rear view mirror (next to the time and temperature) that said ON, so of course I tried it too. The next thing I knew the radio kicked off and I could hear a phone dialing. Soon the rear-view mirror was talking to me! “This is Onstar responding – what is your emergency?” Oops! I had to explain (to the mirror!) that this was my first time to drive the new school vehicle and I was guilty of pushing buttons just to see what would happen. (Who knew that pushing a button labeled ON would be akin to dialing 911?) The voice coming from the mirror chuckled and invited me to call back anytime I actually needed any kind of help in the future before wishing me a good day.

Well, it seems I wasn’t the only one having problems with vehicles yesterday. On my way out of town I had to stop at the gas station because the Suburban was nearly on empty. As I was filling the gas tank, I noticed an elderly woman trying to get the hose from the diesel pump into the gas tank on her car. I hollared over to her questioning if her car really took diesel. She said no so I told her she probably needed to use a different pump then!! Oops again! She thanked me about a dozen times as she hung the diesel hose back up and reached for the gasoline hose.