Sunday: the phone

Mark is one of my friends, and his mother lives in a city that neighbors Irving. Mark is currently living in Germany. I have told his mother to call me anytime she needs anything; I can be there in 15 minutes.

Her call to me this weekend was not to report an emergency, thank goodness. Rather there had been an electrical storm, and her answering machine was acting up. I went Sunday to help her fix it. The clock was all out of whack and the greeting had been deleted. No sweat.

Then she went on to tell me about her kitchen phone. It is cordless, and she often takes it with her to the living room while she watches the news. Even if it is fully charged, she cannot leave it off the base for more than thirty minutes before the battery gets low. I suggested she get a new battery, and off to Walmart we went. We carefully matched the connector and the numbers on the batteries, bought one, went home and checked everything again. I plugged it in, and it fried the phone! There was literally smoke pouring out the sides! Here I try to help her out and instead I break something. Gosh, I felt horrible. But really, it would have happened to anyone.

Then we noticed she had bought the replacement plan on the phone and was still within the warranty period. So I talked to a man at Best Buy on the phone and the replacement would be no problem at all. All she had to do was take in the fried one and she could walk out with a new one. I had to leave her to get to the Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (where I met the Eskimo), but she was comfortable taking care of that exchange herself. Turns out she got an even better phone for the same price. I go back this weekend to help her hang it on the wall. Let's hope I don't break something else.