Ring

Why do teenagers think nothing of calling our landline at 1:11 am? Or 2:03 am? Or 3:52 am. On a weekday. Do they live in barns? Do they not know that calling a landline at that hour will wake up the entire house and get me screaming "What moron is calling at this hour?" as my kids rush for the phone.

You see, the issue is complicated. We live in a house that was wired by an idiot savant in a bad mood. We have hardly any outlets in the entire house. And what we lack in outlets, we starve for phone outlets. We have a grand total of TWO in the entire house. Yup, two. One in the kitchen downstairs, one in my bedroom upstairs. So the phone recharger is always right by me at night, and the phone is on the charger at night. So when it rings, it wakes me up no matter what. 

Which means, of course, that I'm hysterical almost every night when someone calls. Many times it's friends of The Boy's who are in college and forget that the real world sleeps. At night. Soundly. But The Girl's friends call as well. The part of all this that annoys me the most is when the kids actually talk to the caller. Believe me, if you called me at 3 am, I'd be letting you know how much I hated you for waking me up.

While I'm on the subject of the phone, the Girl has a friend named Andy who is older than she is, and graduated from high school several years ago. This kid calls in the middle of the day for her and can't seem to get it through his head that she goes to school. During the day. Every day. Every time he calls I give him the hardest time but he never learns. When I complain to her about Andy, she tells me how dumb he is. No shit, Sherlock.

Have I mentioned how much I despise the telephone?

Comments

[Sorcerer]

lol
!!
first time here.
liked the phone post!

[songbird]

I don't have that problem, my kids' friends NEVER use the landline anymore. The only way I know who they're talking to is by looking at the cell phone bill! but those middle-of-the-night calls! My daughters complain occasionally about someone calling in the wee hours ... but when I say "turn off your cell when you go to sleep" it's like I'm speaking a foreign language.

[Anita]

I think I'd be picking the phone up and yelling "Who Died?????" very loudly. (why else would someone call at that hour?)

[Ms. Huis Herself]

If it bugs you so much, (and I can certainly see why it would! How inconsiderate of them! Really!) have you thought about just turning it off at night? Have you got a cell phone so people could reach you in a real emergency if needed so you could turn off your landline for the night? I bet doing that for a couple of weeks to a month would retrain them that nobody answers at your house from 11pm or 6am or whatever.

Or, you could always answer it yourself at night, tell the caller than unless they're the hospital or a relative, that your house doesn't take calls between 11pm and 6am (or whatever), and if they're not, hang up. Repeat as necessary & if you're consistent, even the dumb ones will catch on eventually. Your kids will whine, the callers will whine, but hey, who's the boss at your house?

[Daisy]

Gah!!! If he's so dumb, she really could do better. He needs a direct statement: "Do not call me at night! Ever! Until I tell you otherwise!"

[dana]

My phone is always on silent mode.