Who Needs a Home Phone?

I don’t have a home phone. Haven’t had one in a long time.
With the popularity of cell phones, home phones seem dispensable at certain stages of life. Recently, though, I began thinking perhaps I’ve passed from needing a home phone to not needing one and then back again to needing one. I misplaced the cell phone. Well, maybe misplaced is too mild; I absolutely lost the phone. I looked everywhere. I looked in the typical places where I find “lost” things – in the refrigerator, in the pantry, in cabinets, in drawers.
Before long, I realized just how much I depend on such a small contraption. The little phone is a link to the rest of the world, a piece of security, maybe even an addiction.
Typically, there are incoming calls on a fairly regular basis, so perhaps I would just wait to hear the phone ring. I waited and waited and waited. This day, no calls. Maybe I could ask someone to call. A little like “call a friend” on the popular TV show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Who could I get to give me a call so that I could hear the phone ringing in its hiding place? Let me think.
Then I realized how crazy this was. How in the world did I think I was going to contact someone to ask the person to make the call? I had no way to call anyone!
Yep, I was in a predicament. I could drive to a pay phone booth – if they even still make those things – or go to a friend’s house to call, but then I wouldn’t be at the house to hear the phone ringing.
So I went back to searching. Then it dawned on me that I could e-mail someone to get that much needed phone call. And that’s what I did. I e-mailed someone who usually is at her computer for work. No response. Then I tried someone else. No response.
Finally, I saw on the computer screen that a friend from law school was on-line in Columbia. I sent him an instant message. Again, no response.
Since it was almost time for me to be somewhere, I left the house. I hadn’t gone far when I heard the familiar sound. Obviously, the phone was somewhere in the car and had not totally vanished from the planet. I felt such relief when I found the little contraption under the seat of the car.
Even so, it may be time to return to a home phone.