Phones, But Not Cell Phones

Mom is pretty much over the newness of the car, and has reminded me several times that she can't drive and therefore has no life. Her friends, she says, are far to busy to come see her so she won't invite them to stop by. Also, she points out, they initially showed concern, and talked about picking her up to do things like lunch etc, but have not phoned with specific plans. But, she hadn't heard from anyone for some time, and was down; on herself, her lack of life and her so-called friends.

Then I got a call from R (an old friend of hers) who said she had called mom's number several times with no answer. She had left messages that had not been returned, and had heard through the grapevine that friends were experiencing the same thing. They were worried.

I suggested she call mom the next day, while I was there. Then, I could make sure the phone was answered. She liked the idea, but told me not to let mom know we had made these plans. I'm not sure if it's a head injury thing, on my part, or a generational thing on her part, but I was amazed that it was so important to the friend that I remain secretive. I did what I almost always do in such situations, I ratted us out.

Before the call was to come in, I shared the information with mom, as if to say See, your friends are worried about you; they love you! She gave me the look that said You simply don't understand. When the call came in, the TV was off (it's the 1st thing I do when I get there, or I can't even hear myself,) and we heard the ring. I took the phone to her and a pleasant conversation followed. They even set up a lunch date for the following day.

One of mom's issue, as with many older people, is her hearing. Her TV is always on, with the volume set way loud, so often times she just doesn't hear the ring. To this statement, she would disagree, but I'll continue.  She said no one was leaving messages, therefore her phone must be broken. And because it was broken, she needed a new one. After a quick system check, I realized she was right, she had NO messages! 

I haven't had a real phone, or answering machine for ages so trying to get to the bottom of mom's techno mess was no easy feat. We started at Costco by buying a set new rechargeable cordless phones that looked vaguely familiar, and after bringing them home I realized why. They were the exact phones she already had. But, I rationalized, I would set these up and know exactly to use them, and therefore, I'd be better able to help her.

My first exercise was to get the phones plugged into the right places. I followed the instructions initially, then I got a wild idea; since they were the same, I would just hook the new phones up exactly like the current phones. The one in the kitchen was easy; it was just a plain old electrical outlet.  As I plugged it in, I read from the manual something like this: At the end of your call, push the end call button and return the handheld unit to the base for the unit to recharge.

This is fairly straight forward, I know, but I wanted her to hear it from the actual manual.  For years she has left phones off the hook, requiring my sister or myself to go search her home for the handset that wasn't hung up. Her response was just as I suspected, Sheesh! Of course I hang up and put it back!

The next phone was the base phone, and would need to be next to an actual phone outlet.  I what those looked like, so I didn't see any problem. To get to the outlet I had to crawl under the desk (housing both her computer, and TV) in her bedroom.  With my lack of agility, getting to, and working on my back, on the floor, is not an easy task. Then throw into the mix my sweating-profusely-under-any kind-of-stress/tension/anxiety condition, and you can imagine what kind of shape I was in. Back and forth I went, from reading the instructions to copying the previous set-up.

There was a small white phone outlet box next to the electrical outlet, but it's insertion spot, (the male part where the female part goes,) was on top of the box and not visible to me.  That's OK, I thought, I know how these work and I'll be able to feel which way the female part should be held in order to make the connection. Well, I tried every which direction, but was unable to make it click. As sweat poured into my eyes, I tried every direction again, and again, bonking my head on the solid desk more than once.

After many failures, I realized that the little white box was connected to the modem on top of the desk. That I could get to easily so I connected the new phone directly to the modem. And guess what?  I had a dial tone! But I wondered if this would be ok in the long run. To get the answer, I had to call the phone company who provided services to my mom. She had the package deal: phone, computer and TV all on one system. The company assured me that a lot of people connect directly to the modem, so I figured mom could be one of them.

Now mom had a working phone, but her answering machine/message issue was far from resolved. The manual told me how to set up my voicemail, which I did, and I found 17 unheard messages there! I was getting somewhere, now, and I was right!  She had been getting messages, but they were in her phone company voicemail, and not on the machine included with the phone.  

That was when I realized when she moved to be across the street from me, back in September, we didn't know her phone stuff was going to be different than it was at her old place. We knew nothing about retrieving messages from space because we assumed the machine connected to her phone was storing them. WRONG.

I learned how to retrieve messages, and even left one from my cell, retrieved it and showed her how it worked. All she does is dial her own number and she's in the voicemail system.  From there, she just listens and responds.  I watched her do it and was certain her problems had been solved, at least those problems.

And by the way, the lunch date went splendidly and she was very happy she had done it.