Much as I love all the latest electronic gadgets I sometimes find some that just make you want to say "WHY?".  Pda's, cell phones, computers and the like are to me an essential part of life.  Why write something with pen and paper, even if you could find a pen and pad when you needed one, when you can push a few buttons and store all important information in one place.  Isn't it easier to look in your cell phone for a phone number or turn on your Palm Pilot for an address than to remember where you put that napkin or scrap of envelope with a really important number written on it?
But then, there are some bounderies that just shouldn't be crossed when it comes to electronics and their place in ordinary life.  Not long ago I was watching the evening news and there was a reporter doing a story on the latest in cell phone crazes.  Someone had come up with the bright idea of offering an "excuse" group.  The concept was to join this group and if you needed a convenient excuse for not showing up for work or standing up a date, you put out a message to the network and someone would make a call to get you off the hook.  The "excuse" call would even come complete with appropriate background noises such as traffic or bar sounds or airport paging systems in order to make the excuse even more authentic.  Where were these people when I was trying to duplicate my mother's signature on an absence note when I skipped school?  Although I do believe my mother's signature was a lot easier for me than having to come up with inventive excuses for people I don't even know.
Then there was a new invention on the Today show one morning.  Here there were several attractive young ladies sporting tee shirts with built-in monitors across their chests showing various streaming videos. WHY????  Let's face it, it doesn't take streaming video to make any man take a second look at an attractive woman.  And another new thing on the market is a refrigerator with a TV built into the door!!   Again I gotta ask...WHY??.  Americans have for generations timed their trips to the fridge during commercials, so what good is a TV on the refrigerator door.   Besides, is all that cold air good for the TV?  Why not come up with a TV for the shower while we're at it....although steam could be a problem.  It makes me wonder who would buy this particular refrigerator and would visitors congregate around the fridge to watch the latest movie......hmmmmm.   I guess we could just move the fridge into the bedroom and make all our husbands dreams come true.....a TV & fridge full of snacks and cold beer all in one convenient place.   I wonder if the fridge TV comes with a remote.
But the topper came this morning during the local news.  Some brilliant mind has come up with a raincoat complete with a built-in MP3 player and a built-in cell phone for the low, low price of $795.00.  Apparently the headphones come up through the collar of the raincoat and one can listen to music and make calls every where they go.  Although the concept is interesting I think it might get just a wee bit warm wearing that raincoat in 90 degree weather and one just might draw the interest of local law enforcement wandering around in a raincoat talking and dancing by oneself.  Somehow I don't see a big market for the raincoat but you never know.  After all, Columbo did well with his rumpled trenchcoat, so just imagine how he'd come across with this coat as he says "Just one more question".........."WHY??!!".

As I was surfing my cell phone provider's site debating on which of the newest phone features were a "must have", I was reminded of just how far something like the telephone has come.  I know if I mentioned things like "party line" and "rotary dial" to my kids, I would be met with blank stares and mumbled comments regarding my age.  People in their thirties assume telephones have always been push button and the idea of sharing a phone line with other families on your block is as foreign a concept as not having portable phones. 
When I was young, and no, it wasn't all that long ago, we had this harvest gold telephone that hung on the wall in the kitchen.  It had a rotary dial which for those  that have never seen one, is a big circle in the middle of the rectangular body of the phone with holes to place your fingers in.  Each hole represented several numbers and letters and you would place your finger in the appropriate hole for each number you needed to dial and turn the dial as far to the right as possible.  Then you withdrew the finger and let the dial go back to it's original position and start the process over for the next number until you had completed dialing the number you wanted.  If you were really good at dialing, you could just let your finger glide back with the dial as it returned to it's starting position.  This rotary thing might seem slow and cumbersome to the younger generation but you'd be amazed at how quickly you could dial numbers with a little practice.
The phone in our kitchen was the one and only phone in the house and was only used when absolutely necessary.  Unlike my kids, the idea of walking in the door and immediately picking up the phone to call the friends you had just left was unheard of.  And then there was the "party line".  Although this may sound like a bunch of people chatting and having a good time on the phone, it was actually sharing a phone line with at least several other houses in the block.  So when you lifted the receiver, you first had to listen to see if anyone else was using the line which could actually be quite entertaining.  You could listen in on other people's conversations and, unless you were breathing too loudly, they would never know you were there!  I recall placing my hand over the mouthpiece to muffle our background noise and listening in for a while if the conversation was interesting.  Disconnecting without being heard was another delicate manuver.  You had to gently place your finger on the hook the receiver hung on and ever so slowly pull it down and place the receiver back on the hook as quickly as possible.  Of course, if you had an actual emergency or the other party was just taking too darn long on the phone, you could butt into their conversation and let them know you really needed to use the line please. 
And the calling plans were much different then too.  After we finally got a private line at our house, we were instructed to keep use to a minimum as our calling plan only allowed thirty calls per month.  It took quite a bit of begging and crying to be able to make a call and minutes were monitored by a timer.  Even after unlimited local calling became the latest thing, my mother would still watch the clock when any of us was on the phone like she was paying by the minute.  She seemed to think that whatever you had to say should be concluded in five minutes or less so I found it easier to rehearse whatever conversation I needed to have on the phone in order to get everything in quickly without it sounding like jibberish to the other person. 
Now we have the luxury of portable phones and extension phones in almost every room.  Who would have ever conceived of having a phone in the bathroom when I was a kid?  When my parents' phone rang in the kitchen, someone would have to run from the other end of the house or from upstairs in order to answer it.  Letting a phone ring ten or fifteen times was the norm back then as it allowed the person you were calling ample time to reach the phone.  These days if you call someone and they don't pick up by the fifth ring, you expect to hear the answering machine kick in.  Would you believe there are still people in this day and age that don't have an answering machine?!!  Much as my husband complains about having to talk to machines, when he's trying to call someone and they don't have a machine his immediate reaction is "What's wrong with these people!!  How are they supposed to know I called if they don't have a machine!!"
I must say that today's telephones have it all over the old ones I grew up with but they do present their own special problems.   We recently had a party and, as is my usual habit, I took the portable outside in case anyone called.  To me it seems easier to answer the call which is most often one of my children or a friend, than to remember to check the machine when I go back inside.  So I took the portable and put it on the table near the pool where we were entertaining.  Later on, we decided to fire up the grill and throw on some steaks and I moved the phone closer to the deck.  Now normally I know exactly where I left the portable but on this particular night, I had moved it several times, and with no incoming calls to alert me as to it's location, I was faced with the worst drawback of portable phones.  As we took in the last of the dishes and glasses late that night, I looked at the telephone holder and was shocked to see it missing it's most important component.  Where the heck did I leave the phone?  I quickly went back outside, in the dark, with a flashlight, frantically searching for my phone as my husband watched chuckling at the door.  Finally admitting defeat, I walked slowly back into the house and quietly confessed to not knowing where the phone was.  My husband burst out laughing, saying "Well that's a first!" and , saying a silent prayer that it wouldn't rain during the night I trudged off to bed still racking my tired brain as to the mysterious disappearance of the phone.  The next morning, armed with a cup of coffee I resumed the search.  I retraced my steps of the night before, checking the pool area and the yard with no success.  As I headed back to the deck where we ended the evening, I glanced to the left, checking to make sure the gate was closed so my dogs wouldn't wander out, and lo and behold, there sat my portable phone on the deck rail!!  I quickly put it back  on it's charger and satisfied that this essential part of life was safely back home, I sat down with my coffee and newspaper to resume my normal Sunday routine. 

The English language can be the source of unending humor especially in the hands of children trying to learn the language and in adults who tend toward mispronounciation and misuse of words. I recall a little girl I used to babysit for who once told me she was reading a "mazagine" while listening to "musekick" on her radio. My youngest daughter had a wonderful name for a merry-go-round. She insisted it was an American-round. My son's favorite steak was "sewer line" and the floor in the kitchen was "lilloleum".
Our 5 year old grandson recently had a conversation with his mother regarding swimming attire. His almost 2 year old sister did not yet have a bathing suit and he was explaining to his mother that it was time to go to the store to buy his sister a "baby suit" for the pool. His mother said "You mean bathing suite don't you?". Becoming exasperated he said "No, she's not taking a bath. She needs a baby suit like mine to go swimming in". His mother reminded him that he wasn't a baby anymore and with hands on hips he replied " I know I'm not a baby but EVERYONE wears a baby suit in the pool!"
My husband has a sometimes endearing and other times exasperating habit of mispronouncing words and substituting his own names for things. Our grandson was out in the yard one day when he heard a loud whirring in the sky. As he looked up and pointed, he shouted " Look it's a .....what does Pop-pop call it?...Oh yeah...it's a "heelicopter!". No amount of correction will make this child realize the real word is helicopter. Then there is his term for our favorite activity on Friday evening at the local bar. What others may call karaoke he insists is "terriake" which has gotten him many confused looks when he talks about the people singing on terriake night. Does that make terriake sauce "karaoke sauce" ?
I can understand the confusion sometimes when you come across something unfamiliar. We recently bought a house in Florida that has a screened porch referred to as a lanai. Not having heard the term often, my husband was talking to my brother-in-law on a recent visit to Florida and saying how much he had enjoyed having coffee out on the "Renay". As my sister & I disolved into fits of laughter, my brother-in-law asked "Who's Renee?" My husband has gotten the hang of saying lanai now but my brother-in-law kind of liked the "Renay" better.
We've all laughed at New Englanders who tend to drop the R from words. Remember the phrase " Pak the ca"? Translation: Park the car. Well, I've discovered what happened to all the R's they discarded. These lost consonants attach themselves to certain people and wind up in words where they weren't meant to be. My husband tends to add r's to words, a habit I suspect he picked up from his mother. He often refers to "Chicargo" and "orbituary" and has passed this along to one of our employees who recently went looking for a new car at the "Burick" dealer. At least these orphan r's have found a home.
Then there are the times when he glances too quickly at something and the result is hilarious. Recently we were preparing for a party when our son dropped by. Diligently working on the cheese platter, my husband continued the coversation as he reached into the cabinet for the crackers. Picking up several boxes, he checked the labels to see what kind they were. When he turned around to ask what the heck these "Mulligan" crackers were my son and I could barely contain ourselves long enough to explain that they were "multigrain" crackers. And there is his name for the culottes women wore back when were we young. Being a cross between a skirt and shorts, culottes were a fashion favorite which he immediately dubbed "kumquats" and it has remained that way forever.
This morning I sat thinking of these funny phrases and words that have become a part of everday conversation and came up with a little story incorporationg most of the favorites: "Sitting out on the "renay", I was reading an "orbituary" about this woman in "Chicargo" who was wearing white "kumquats" last Friday and, leaving her favorite club after a night of "terriake", was suddenly squashed by a "heelicopter" whose pilot was so engrossed in his "mulligan" crackers that he misjudged the airport."

We've all known people who have a fear of something that most people find easy to deal with. There's the usual fear of heights and tight spaces, possibly brought on by some childhood experience, but the list of phobias recognized in the world is positively staggering. There is actually a website that lists the conditions and corresponding "phobia" name for everything you could possibly imagine. For instance, the name for fear of being too close to high buildings is called Batophobia. Unless there were bats flying around the building or one had been scared by Batman, I can't quite understand how the name applies to the fear. Wouldn't structurophobia or even masonryophobia give a clearer meaning?
As I was scrolling through this long, long alphabetized list of phobias, I noticed that there were many names that quite simply defined the condition. Like the one for fear of taking tests is Testophobia.....makeses sense to me. The fear of words is Verbophobia. Again pretty self explanatory, although it does leave the question of whether one is just afraid of verbs or is just as phobic about nouns and adjectives. There's even a name for fear of phobias.....yep, you guessed it....Phobophobia.
There was one glaring ommission in the list though. It's a fear I developed growing up and one that haunts me to this day. It began as a small child when after every meal my mother would reach for one of the multiple small empty margarine containers that occupied an entire cabinet and proceed to fill them with small quantities of whatever happened to be left at the end of the meal. It could be a scoop of mashed potatoes, 2 tablespoons of corn or lima beans or even one lone dinner roll. Every last morsel was packed into a container and stored in the refrigerator. Now I can understand the waste not, want not concept but it can be taken too far. These containers would sit in the refrigerator for days, and sometimes weeks or months. If we were lucky, some of the little tubs would get hidden behind a larger object and go unnoticed until they began resembling a science experiment. I won't confess to guiding the tubs into a hiding place but sometimes you have to move things around a little when you're looking for something in a crowded refrigerator.
Now, my mother's little leftover collection may not seem frightening to the average person but to this day, the words "Do you want to keep the rest of this?" uttered by anyone holding a small plastic storage container can send me screaming into the streets.
The real problem began when I innocently inquired one Friday evening what we were having for dinner. My mother replied "Mustgoes". I looked at her in total confusion and asked her what that was. Her answer " It means all leftovers must go" sent a chill down my tiny spine. I had gotten used to never knowing what cereal may come falling out of a box marked Cheerios since my mother tended to mix the remaining small amounts of cereal into one box on a relatively consistent basis, something she now denies ever doing but both of my sisters and my brother can vouch for the truth of this happening. It seemed the only cereal box that was sacred was the corn flakes since that was my father's daily breakfast and I'm pretty sure he wouldn't enjoy the WheatiesKixShreddedWheat we kids found in our bowls.
So, when my mother called out that dinner was ready on Mustgoes night, I slowly trudged into the kitchen dreading what concoction awaited me. Sitting quietly in my appointed place, I watched as she spooned out the vegetables she called succotash and the "stew" floating in gravy. The succotash was an amazing combination of corn, peas, green beans, beets, cabbage and other unidentifiable pieces of whatever vegetables had been residing in the refrigerator all week. The stew was even more difficult to figure out as it had chicken, beef, ham, and, I swear, corned beef and barbeque loaf all stirred into chickenbeefmushroom gravy. As I shuddered through this leftover dinner, I knew I would never be the same again.
As an adult, I can finally choose what, if any, type of leftover appears in my refrigerator and to perfectly honest, there aren't any. I heartily encourage any dinner guests to please feel free to take the rest of the ham or macaroni home with them since they enjoyed it so much. My friends and family know I seldom save the remains of a meal but I've never shared the secret of my fear with them since I felt sure they would think me slightly unbalanced. So I dilligently searched the phobia website for a name for my condition, only to be met with disappointment. Apparently noone else in the world suffers from the same fear of leftovers as I do so I've been forced to name it myself. Fear of leftovers is now called Mustgoesaphobia and believe me it's a terrible secret to bear. Mustgoesaphobics be not afraid.....all leftovers MUSTGO into the trashcan where they can do no more harm to young psychies!