"Hello, Carol?"

If a phone attached to the wall for 20 years is a problem, you can imagine the issues the 21st century has created.  I'm talking about the cell phone.

Grandma Looney is forever promising/threatening to do things -- get a cell phone, clean out her garage, start working out (all of which will be covered in future items). So, after talking about needing a cell phone but never quite going as far as going to a store to get one, we called her bluff and bought her a prepaid cell phone, with 60 prepaid minutes.

Knowing technology can be tough, this phone is only slightly more advanced than a Jitterbug (which must not have been on the market at the time, or we'd have been all over it).  All Grandma Looney really wanted was to be able to call and be called when she is out and about. We brought the phone to her, set it up, explained it, and demonstrated. She made a test call, and she was off and running!

So we thought.  About a month later, as I was heading to meet Grandma Looney for dinner, my own cell phone rang.  Caller ID: Grandma Looney! Imagine my excitement of a plan coming together.

"Hello!" I answer with great enthusiasm.
Response from the other end: "Hello, Carol?"
Me: "No, this isn't Carol, it's me, Grandma."
Silence. Click.

Hmm. That was weird.  20 seconds later, my phone rings again.  You've got it. Grandma Looney.
"hellooooo...," I answer this time, with much less enthusiasm.
Silence.
Again, I say, "helloooo...?"
"Carol?"
"No, not Carol. It's me."
Click.

Of course, another 20 seconds, another call.
I answer, snippily, "hello."
Click.

So I get to the restaurant, and say, "Grandma, you keep calling me but you must be trying to call Carol."
Grandma Looney (insert her famous eye roll here): "That phone you got me, there's something wrong with it. It will only call your number."
"Let me see what you are doing," I say.

So Grandma Looney reaches in her purse, and pulls out... a hard plastic eyeglasses case.  Which she opens, and pulls out a linen handkerchief, which she begins to unroll... to reveal... her cell phone! (Of course, she wanted this phone in case of an accident, when she certainly will be able to calmly unwrap her mummified phone in a pinch.) She shows me how she turns on the phone (she doesn't keep it on so as not to drain the battery -- of course, she can't receive any calls either)... pressing the "on" button -- over and over, hence calling the last number she dialed -- me.  I explain the mistake, we take another trial run.  Problem solved.

On my ride home, my cell rings. Aw, Grandma Looney must be calling to thank me for meeting for dinner and helping her.
"Hi!"
"Hello? Carol?"