|
Copyrights reserved by the author. If in doubt, please click on 'Copyrights' for details. The Answering Machine by J. G. Fabiano I stood in the woods behind my house, looking for something I knew that I would never find. My wife had long before given up trying to talk me out of my daily search. So many questions remained unanswered and, if there were any answers, the questions would be too incredible to ask but, I'm starting at the probable end of the story. I should begin at the beginning.
It was a perfectly normal autumn evening at my house: all of my family was sitting around the TV watching ‘Sixteen Candles' for the twelfth time. My wife was in her customary fetal position on the couch wearing her infamous fat clothes. You know the ones I mean: the size 22 sweat-pants surrounding her size seven frame. She tells me that wearing big clothes makes her feel smaller than she really is, so that she can eat more to get bigger. I gave up long ago trying to understand her rationale and since I'm already in a size 36 pants, I have a tendency to keep my mouth shut. My daughter was half watching the TV and creating her never-ending supply of color-filled pictures. I was in my favorite rocker contemplating whether or not to make myself the second scotch of the evening. I had the movie memorized five showings ago but still sat there, hoping I might see a new twist of plot, or maybe even find a plot. Who would have thought that an irrational sound from a simple machine would change all of our lives. Life in York Beach, Maine, was said to be everyone's dream. Living just a stone's throw from one of the most beautiful beaches in the world was described as living in a little piece of heaven. The serenity of the ten months of the year that were considered the off-season had to calm you down. Even the insanity, of the remaining two months of summer, was looked forward to, for both its coming and going. I never had to worry about my daughter walking herself to the bus stop. I even got into the habit of forgetting to lock my car and house. You didn't have to tell me that I was one lucky guy. Most urbanites looked down upon this type of lifestyle because it wasn't exciting enough. I figured it was because they were afraid to slow down, in horror that it was analogous with growing old. A favorite time of year was upon us. The time just after all the summer people went home and gave the beach back to those of us who dared to live through the off-season. The time marked the end of the excitement of summer and began the preparation for the holidays and the cold of winter. It is a remarkably quiet time of year, especially on the beaches. The hustle and bustle of summer vacations are still very clear in our minds. Yet normality is not the only idea that comes back to us. Serenity also creeps its wonderful head back into our lives. After years of working in three different summer businesses, my wife decided to play rural housewife. She would meet her girl friends at least once a week. They would go to either Sheldon's Café or to Rick's All Seasons Restaurant, to talk about subjects girl friends talk about. They loved to laugh at the natives. Needless to say she didn't realize that after twenty-six years living up in God's country, she was evolving into her own form of native. Not a true native of course: a true native is defined as a person who was born and died in this town. Once I read an obituary in the York Independent, which read, " so and so passed away at the age of 95 who was a native of Framingham, Massachusetts". Even though he lived in York Beach all but one year of his life he was still described as being a native of Massachusetts. You could never be considered a native, by a native, unless you were born here. My wife would also meet in one of her friend's basement, to build up a sweat, doing aerobics. This form of exercise is great for your heart and muscle-tone but, it is destructive to your shins, legs, and neck. She always said that she would be the cripple with the best body in the chiropractic ward at York Hospital. My daughter knows York as her only home. We moved into our house when she was only two months old. Of course, this means that she is not a native of York. She is a remarkably bright kid with a sense of right that will be her distinction for life. The best way to describe myself is that I am an unemployed schoolteacher working my way through a Master's Program at The University of New Hampshire. The reason for my present unemployment is that I am more concerned with the education of my students, than I am with the politics of present day school administrations. At least that is what I say. They say I am a troublemaker. Now believe me when I say that I take no offense by this description. I have just got to learn to get better at it. My wife's and my free time created the capacity to bring my family closer together. In fact, we did everything together, from going to museums to hitting every fast-food restaurant in the New England area. We even went shopping together: from food to clothes and toys to appliances. Which brings me to the time we went to Sears looking for a new telephone and maybe even an answering machine. The telephone was the toughest item to pick out, because ever since the telephone company broke up into different companies, the number of different types of telephones increased many folds. After convincing my daughter that we couldn't possibly use a phone shaped like Garfield the Cat, we bought a conventional brown, wall telephone that jingled a tune instead of just ringing. Even though, like Pavlov's dog, I know I will miss the sound of a conventional telephone, a family man must remember and practice the art of compromise. The answering machine was a lot easier to pick out because the selection was more limited. Both my wife and daughter thought the whole idea was boring. I tried to explain that the machine was necessary because I was always waiting for telephone calls concerning possible employment. I told them that the machine also gives you the choice of not answering and allows one to hear who is calling. I knew privately that the machine was a necessary tool for me because this was a great way of stalling off my many creditors. A specific machine caught my fancy because it was on sale and was the simplest to use. After I decided to purchase it, the clerk told me that their stock was depleted and the only machine of this type was the one I was looking at. They had plenty of more expensive ones in the back storage room but, I was set on buying this specific one. After convincing my wife that a box was not a necessary part of how the machine operated, the clerk bagged it and immediately sought out another customer. Arriving home is always a five minute experience in chaos. My daughter can fling, pick up, and re-fling in a matter of microseconds before her mother can scream her way back into normality. I, on the other hand, was completely enthralled in the technology of my new toys. I was immediately engrossed in the installation of the telephone. Because that entailed the plugging in of a wire, the installation made me feel brilliant. The answering machine was not much more complicated but it did require the task of creating an outgoing message. Sitcoms should be so amusing. It took at least twenty-plus attempts to complete a close-to-coherent tape. The only way to succeed in this quest was to force everyone out of the room. I also had to think back to my most depressed memories, so my message didn't sound like I was a crazed madman. I finally succeeded, thus making the machine ready to take its appointed place next to the adding machine and my computer. The next evening was like most other evenings with the exception of the awkward messages left on my newest of toys. Our friends left their thought-to-be amusing messages and the frustrated bill-collectors left their pleas for a possible callback. Answering machines gave birth to a favorite excuse for delaying payment of bills, second only to the check is in the mail. We were all watching the lost, confused, adolescent girl become sophisticated because she met a guy who looked at least 20 years older than she, when the answering machine started to click: not your normal, soft snaps but full-fledged loud cracks. The sound was like branches breaking during a sub-zero winter storm. The sound surprised us all. Looking over to my wife I could see that, "I told you so," expression on her face. My daughter just wanted it to stop, so that she could continue to memorize her favorite movie. Not having any concept of what might be wrong, I got up and checked the wires leading into and out of the machine. Waiting a moment, in the knowledge that I really didn't do anything, the clicking sound stopped. "No problem," I bragged in my pride that I might just have succeeded in what I was trying to do. My wife just sat and refused to give me credit because she knew that time would prove her correct - again. She was right! A half an hour later the machine decided to fall back into it's crackling mode and almost succeeded in driving us out of the room. My wife then told me to disconnect the thing. I told her that I would check the wires again and I was sure the problem could be corrected. She didn't know that I wanted to keep the machine in service because one of my larger creditors was sure to call. By some twist of luck I was right, in that the machine stayed quiet through the rest of the evening. My hapless creditor also called. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
