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     After my elderly mother took a bad fall from tripping over the phone cord to get up to answer my call, I vowed to get rid of the cord. On Christmas morning, I proudly presented a brand new phone system to my aging parents. 

It was marvelous!! There were several cordless units in the set. One was a base unit, and the others were remotes that did not require the installation of new phone jacks. They were 5.8 Ghz digital gigarange. They were voice enhanced, with volume controls and speaker alternatives to the hand set. They had built in, synchronized, personal phone books. They had variable ring tones with volume adjustment. The base had an automatic answer machine with personalized message recording. It had talking caller ID, a hold button, and "call waiting" flash button. It had a memo reminder function. It could even be used as an intercom. It was awesome!!!

How pleased I was as I went about installing the phones. I would put the base in the den, and I would put one in each bathroom, one in the kitchen, one in the guest bedroom. It meant no more falling while trying to reach a phone, no more stretching cords across the room, no more invitations to trips and falls. How sweet it was!!

After several hours of selecting the right placement, setting up the ring tones and the message unit, entering the phone book numbers and synchronizing them, I was ready to demonstrate the features to mom and dad. Mom listened carefully as I explained the most basic usage. She tried it out, and vowed that she would get used to it, given a little time. Dad said "It’s real nice, and since i don’t use the phone much, just don’t worry about teaching me how to use all those buttons."

Each time I called, I asked how they liked the phones.

In the beginning, mom said "I think I will like them once I get used to them".

Dad said "I can’t hear you".

Later, mom began saying "How do I get it off the speaker?" I replied "Just push the small, black Talk button.". Mom said she couldn’t see which one that was because the letters are real small. She always answers by just pushing the orange button because she can see that one. The orange button turns on the speaker phone.

Dad said "What?"

Soon, mom asked how to connect dad’s pacemaker monitor to the new phones. On a regular basis, a technician calls and instructs them to connect the pacemaker monitor to the phone so that it can be checked remotely. I said "Uh Oh!"

I installed a splitter and re-connected the old phone, so it could be used in addition to the hotsy totsy new-fangled phone system that would not work with medical monitoring equipment.

The telephone wars were escalating. On my next call, dad sounded really strange and hoarse.

What’s wrong, dad? I asked

"I was taking a nap. When the phone rang, I got up to answer it, and didn’t realize my leg was asleep. It buckled under me and I fell". He sounded like he was in pain.

Rather than use the new, cordless phone system I had installed to prevent them from having to get up suddenly to answer the phone, he had bypassed and ignored the new phone system, and attempted to go for the old phone, because he only knew how to use the old phone. 

I was devastated.