LIFE AT THE CELLULAR LEVEL/ NEW COLUMN

LIFE AT CELLULAR LEVEL

My father used to hold his hand up next to his face and flap his thumb and four fingers together to mimic my mom’s incessant yakking on the phone. My wife is very different from my mother. Mary Ellen does not talk much on the phone. Not that she doesn’t try.

The problem started after  I replaced the phones in the kitchen and living room about three years ago and added a second line. When I call the house to speak to Mary Ellen all I hear is a series of clicks, an occasional “huh?” and then a dial tone. I try back on our second line. Same thing. Later, when I arrive at the house,  we have the identical conversation every time...

“Mary Ellen, why didn’t you answer the phone?”

“I tried, but I never know what line you’re calling on.”

“It’s the one that lights up..”

“Since when?”

“Since the spring of ’08.”

“Well, I always hit line one, then line 2, just in case.”

“Don’t you see, when you hit line 2, it disconnects you from line 1?”

This seemed to fluster my wife, who continued to maintain that I had installed a system that was far too complicated for the Wolfsies,  the proof being that by my own admission this was called a hard-line phone. Apparently a little too hard.

To combat this problem, I began calling Mary Ellen only on her cell phone. No answer. But 10 seconds later my cell rings....

“Dick, I saw that you just called.”

“I don’t want you to see that I called, I want you to hear that I am calling and then answer it. Maybe if you had a little more practice at home.”

“Are these the same people who make the phone in the living room? Wait, maybe I’m missing an app.”

“You don’t need an app to answer your phone. I may have to write a column about this.”

Boy, was that the wrong thing to say. The next day, Mary Ellen made a list of all the stuff I can’t master.

“Let’s see, you have no idea how to open the car door with that little remote on your keychain. You click to open the passenger side door for me but all you do is double-lock all the doors; then you click again and only your door opens. Then the windows lock and the alarm goes off. I know this isn’t easy. You’ve only had that car six years.”

“Is there more?” I asked.

“How about that TV remote? You stand in front of the set and hit every button: CABLE, ON, POWER, DVD, ALL. The TV sort of comes half on, then the DVD tray opens, then everything goes black, so you push all the buttons again. Then you walk out of the room like you do at work when you screw up the Xerox machine.

“Anything else, dear?”

“You still don’t know how to turn off the toaster oven, so you just yank the plug out of the wall. And that microwave must be a real stumper because I’ve caught you running your fingers over the control panel like it was a Ouija board. And finally, “Tear Here” doesn’t mean “tear there,” or “tear nearby.” The words “slash with a knife” are not visible anywhere on your package of baloney.

I think she had more to say, but I couldn’t bear to listen. If you’d like to hear more, give her a call. On line 2. Good luck.

FOND MEMORIES

FOND MEMORIES

I hired a tutor to teach me about the intricacies of Facebook, blogging, and tweeting. The original plan was to take a class on all this, but I get very distracted in large groups and can’t concentrate. This is what happens to me in a movie, which is why I’m still not sure why Colin Firth was in drag at the end of Mamma Mia!

Christine, my able instructor, spent a great deal of time with me.  She discussed privacy settings and asked if I was okay just having friends, or whether I wanted to have communication with people who were friends of friends. I went for broke and opted for friends of friends of friends because before computers, that’s the very method I used to select a doctor to do my first colonoscopy. Oh, and find a wife.

At one point, Christine asked me to publish something on my Facebook wall, just to give me an idea of how the process worked. For lack of anything prepared, I typed the following:

Thanks to Facebook, I have located three old high school girlfriends. Two of them don’t remember me.

Proudly, I hit the enter button and made my note visible to all 1,600 friends, few of whom I really know, but Christine assured me that this is just the kind of juicy tidbit that people who surf the Internet are looking for to liven up a dreary day.

Of course, there was no truth to what I had written on my wall. Trolling for old squeezes online would be frowned upon by Mary Ellen. So would my downloading questionable content from websites that she believes would have a detrimental effect on our marriage: do-it-yourself home improvement projects.

Within minutes, my Facebook page was abuzz with commentary about my post from former classmates. “Post,” by the way, is a new term I learned, and I’m trying to get the hang of using. Christine will be so proud.

So here are some of the posts that were posted in response to my post:

Dear Dick,

I was an old girlfriend. Can you find out how the others managed to forget you? God knows I’ve been trying for 45 years.  Charlene

Hi, Dickie,

Try not using your maiden name.  Ginny

Hello, Dick,

I’m not 100% sure, but I think we went to the Senior Prom together. Does that make you feel better?   Barbara

Wolfsie,

Your name rings a bell. Oh yeah, you used to copy my homework, steal my pen and call me chubby. Gee, thanks for reminding me.  Andrea

Dick,

We graduated in l965. We’re lucky we even remember high school.   Carol

Hi, Dick,

I remember you very well, but we never went out. Maybe it’s the dating part that makes you so forgettable.    Sara

I was a little embarrassed about all these responses suggesting I didn’t make much of an impression on women, but I hadn’t progressed far enough in my instruction to know how to delete them, so I called my Facebook coach....

“Hi Christine, it’s Dick Wolfsie.”

“Who?”

     

WASHED UP by Dick Wolfsie

WASHED UP

We were both afraid to go into the room. We walked back and forth in front of the door for several days, avoiding the inevitable. Things were piling up outside and I knew that we couldn’t hold out indefinitely. But I didn’t want to be first; nor did Mary Ellen.

Our son Brett was home from college for winter break. “Brett, you try it.  I’m just not comfortable with the whole idea,” I said. “It’s so big. And so blue. I’m scared to death of it.”

“Dad, they’re just laundry machines.”

Easy for him to say. He’s young. He grew up in a high-tech world of computers, iPods, and Internet surfing. When I was his age, Post-it notes were the rage. Now, I was faced with technology I would have to master sooner or later. Our old washer-dryer set had been on the fritz and as luck would have it, my wife won a brand new set of appliances in a raffle.

They arrived last week and I watched as the two behemoths were installed by a crack technician. “Don’t I get instructions?” I asked, expecting a short tutorial. Instead, I was handed a 74-page manual. In four languages.

I stared at the two appliances for several minutes. Our laundry room looked like the cockpit of a 747. Between the two machines there were over three dozen buttons. Each not only lit up when touched but emitted a series of short annoying beeps as if it were trying to communicate with me like in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Our old washer had two settings. Going from a normal cycle to a gentle cycle is not something a man does lightly, so I never messed with that. My wife sometimes ventured there, but for the most part, the Wolfsies put a normal spin on things.

I don’t have a lot of confidence with washers, in general. My wife won’t let me load the dishwasher because she says I don’t respect the slots. I think this is a design flaw inherent in the product. When I load my camera I have very few decisions to make. I don’t have a gun, but seems to me that the people who manufacture firearms have made it pretty clear where to stick the bullet, so that even after a few Coors Lights you’ll get it right.

Somehow I end up melting all the Tupperware. I’m okay with cups and glasses, although my wife claims it matters which end is up, which I think is just an affectation on her part. Mary Ellen also has this thing about rinsing the dishes before I put them in the washer, but you don’t run underwear under hot water before throwing them in the clothes washer. I’m right, aren’t I? I can see you nodding your head.

I scanned the buttons on the new Whirlpool and eyed the dial that gave me options such as silk, quick wash or wool. One setting said hand washables, but I wasn’t going to stick my mitts in there while that monster was turning. The setting for big, bulky items was okay with me, but I think the whole idea of it scared the dog half to death.  One setting said sanitize, which I had thought they threw in with every cycle.

The dryer had a setting called super hot, which I told my wife was especially for her. If we had been in a fancy restaurant that might have gone over well, but we were standing in a room knee-deep in dirty sheets and pillow cases.

My favorite button is the one that adjusts the volume of the other buttons so that if you are down in the basement, you can hear the machine upstairs alert you that you are no longer washing, you are now spinning. I’m amazed Mary Ellen and I ever managed without this feature. 

I have to go now. My socks are calling.

KEEP YOUR CHIN UP!

Surveys show that most people hate at least one part of their body.  I'm not happy with my ears, for example.  I think they stick out more than they should.  My wife says I'm crazy and to be that obsessed with my own looks makes me appear very elfish.  I think she meant selfish.  Freud wasn’t all wrong.

The other morning when I was shaving, I tilted my head down to look at my receding hairline.  For a long time people asked me if I was losing my hair.  Not really.  I knew exactly where it was.   In the sink.  About 15 years ago, I had a hair transplant. A hair transplant is sort of like what happens when a person dies. "He's gone to a better place," people often say.  That's the same with my hair.  I don't have more hair, but what I had, the doctor put in a better place. 

While looking in the mirror, I noticed a chin that I had not been aware of before. I was pretty happy with the two I already had.  Fortunately, that very morning I saw something advertised on TV that gave me hope. It’s called The Miracle Neck Slimmer, a device they claim was created by a world-renowned physiotherapist.  I was all ears.

At first, I thought the contraption was a scam, but they said that the manufacturer guarantees a 68 percent reduction in neck wrinkles. I have achieved similar results by simply slinging my head back and looking straight up at the ceiling. The results are temporary, of course, and I have slammed into several doors, but it does work. Well, I think it works. It’s hard to look in the mirror in that position.

The apparatus looks like one of those slap-and-chop gadgets you pound with the palm of your hand to pulverize a Vidalia onion. With the Miracle Neck Slimmer, you place the apparatus under your chin, then bob your head up and down like common poultry. Springs in the device create tension. It’s like your neck and chin are getting a good workout on a tiny treadmill. You can see why I was hooked.

You also get a luxury faux-leather carrying case that has emblazoned on it: “Miracle Neck Slimmer”, which I am sure got everyone who was sitting on the fence to whip out their MasterCards. But why would you want to advertise you made this purchase? It might as well say: AARP Gift Bag.

The enclosed DVD gives you precise directions on how to properly jog your skull 

to and fro. It looked to me like someone auditioning to be a bobble-head doll or a back-up for the San Diego chicken. They also throw in an accelerator cream.  I think it’s an anti-aging lotion, but it could be an ointment to make your head go faster.

Finally, in the unlikely event you have resisted their sales pitch, they offer you a second Miracle Neck Slimmer for free. I had assumed that no matter how many chins I had, one device would be enough.  Their website suggested the additional Slimmer would make an excellent gift to give to your spouse.

Gee, what could go wrong with that idea? “Mary Ellen, you know those luscious little neck wrinkles you have? Well, for just $19.95 plus shipping and handling...”

It’s easier to see my extra chins, now. I had my head handed to me.

NEWEST HUMOR COLUMN

THIS BUD’S FOR YOU!

When I was about six years old, our family doctor chastised my mother when he discovered that Joan used Q-tips to clean her children’s ears. “Never,” I remember him saying in the sternest of tones, “put anything in a child’s ear smaller than an elbow.”

I wish that general admonition had filtered down to little Eric Shoenbaum who, during my first year at summer camp, managed to slam his right elbow into not only my ear, but also my eye, nose and mouth.

Since then I’ve always taken pretty good care of my ears, but lately they’ve let me down. Here’s the problem: I can’t get the earbuds that connect to my iPod to stay in place. I see people jogging, riding their bikes, walking their dogs, even playing Twister while the whole time those little suckers remain neatly wedged in position.

Not for me, they don’t. First the right one falls out and dangles alongside my head, then the left one loosens and lands in the hood of my sweatshirt. Often the entire wire gets tangled on my dog’s leash or caught in my bicycle chain. Once I leaned over to get a pen out of my glove compartment, hooked the wires on my gear shift and almost strangled myself.

I thought I was alone in my plight but apparently there are others suffering in silence. Literally. According to an article in the New York Times, two out of ten people endure a disorder called Earbud Cartilage Deficiency Syndrome, sometimes known as ECDS, but if you’re looking for a good laugh at a cocktail party you really need to say all those words out loud. For every 20 ears out there, four are having a heck of a time keeping it all together. My wife does not have this problem, by the way. She is cartilaginously well-endowed and, I am proud to say, it is all natural.

One techie website reports that people with this problem lack an antitragus in the ear canal, which is “a small tubercle that points anteriorly and is separated from the tragus by the intertragic notch.” Sorry to bore you with the obvious.

To combat this abnormality, somebody needs to pay a lot more attention to product specifications. Here’s a description of a set of earbuds on eBay: “Full metal housing, cold forged from solid aluminum, anodized finish, with a tactile ID system, flexible joints and a full spectrum of hyper-balanced micro drivers.” Am I buying earbuds or a lunar module? I also discovered that earbuds have funny names like M&Ms and strawberry cupcakes. If you told people you were putting M&Ms in your ears, they’d think  you weren’t eating right.

It’s unfortunate that you can’t try on earbuds before you buy them, but that would be disgusting, if your selection had been in someone else’s canals first. I think about gross stuff like that, which is why I haven’t bought a new bathing suit in 20 years.

On one Internet site you can get a fun pack of earbuds in three different sizes for only

$69.95. Okay, some people have two different-sized ears. I get that. But I think the market for three mismatched ears has limited sales potential.

Maybe I should stop obsessing about this. In my senior years, I’m already dealing with failing vision, sinus problems and a receding hairline. I don’t need to be distracted by side issues.