Did you ring?

Today's rambling comes courtesy of Harper's extremely long nap and a marginally clean house.

We don't have a land-line telephone. Harper doesn't even know what to do with a play telephone, unless it looks like a cell.  She's never even seen us use one, which I plan to rectify over the holidays in NC.

Obviously, it's all we had  when I was growing up.  Most of the phones that cycled through our home weren't even cordless. Oh, the dark ages.

..but it had its charms and I can't help but think that today's youth are missing out:

It made us active and athletic: Requisite were the abilities to quickly sprint from one end of the house to the other or clear a staircase in no more than three bounds. . . .lest you be rewarded with an impatient dial tone and no clue who called.

It made us religious: "Lord, I will completely quit cussing if..., please, let it be cutest-boy-in-middle-school." or "Lord, please don't let it be crazy Aunt Harriett who will want to talk to the whole family for 30 minutes, tying up the line so that cute boy can't call.."

It made us polite: More than likely, placing a call to a friend meant talking to their parents. I fully intend to grab Harper's phone regularly, and much to her chagrin, make sure the person on the other end isn't a complete idiot.

It made us articulate: We took messages for our parents from other adults and watched our parents seek answers to questions by placing calls and talking to complete strangers - not just researching on the Internet.

It made us gutsy: A boy couldn't just send a rogue "Hey Beautiful ;)" text declaring his undying love and devotion.  He had to call and.. woo.. and not be the aforementioned idiot who couldn't talk to your parents.

It made us patient: Between school, ball practice and the trip home, we had to wait hours to bust through the door and lunge for the phone.  If your parent had to make a call, first? Oh, the agony.

It made us well-rested: Woe unto the kid who called our house after 9:00 p.m. and woe unto me for letting it happen.  Woe, I tell you.

Clearly, I've been watching too many episodes of Mad Men, but I think the charms will eventually come back in vogue.  Sooner or later, we'll all realize that we don't want everyone knowing what we're doing all the time. We'll crave peace and quiet and privacy and update our blogs and Facebook statuses less often.

Until then.