Phone, Neighbors, Soldering Iron

I called my parents on Friday afternoon at my usual time. The call went straight to voice mail: odd. I called again that evening and the same thing happened. So, I called my sister to see if she had talked to them that day. No. So, I called my parents’ neighbor and they volunteered to walk over and ring my parents’ doorbell and check on them. Such nice people.

About 15 minutes later, my dad called me from his cell phone. The neighbors had come to their door and told them I was trying to get them on the phone. My parents were in bed – at 8:30!

Their phone (landline) was not working. When they picked it up, they heard a buzzing sound. So, instead of going back to bed and dealing with it in the morning, my dad called the phone company. 

He called me about an hour later to tell me. He said, “I asked the man where he was. He said Texas. I don’t understand why they aren’t here in town!”

I said, “It’s Friday night, Daddy. The office is closed.”

Anyway, my dad put in a ticket and they said someone would be out to fix the phone Monday because apparently the problem was in the phone, not the line.

Sunday night my dad called me and I could tell from the caller ID on my cell phone that he was calling from his landline. “Hey,” I said. “Looks like you got your phone fixed.”

He said, “The problem was the battery charger in the wireless phone. I happened to hear it making a noise, so I looked at it and realized it was the problem. I had to take the battery pack out and solder some batteries together to get the right charge to replace what was in there. Your mother held the wires while I soldered them.”

I’m listening to this nonsense from 1500 miles away. We hung up and I texted my brother-in-law to let him know what happened. He said the battery packs are kind of expensive and my dad probably didn’t want to pay for one. He knew he could make one on his own, so he did.

I’m just glad no firetruck was needed.