"Well, if you don't like it, I'll just get another one."
"It's not that I don't like it, it's just not very easy to use."
In retrospect,.6.30 am, just as Francis is preparing to leave for work, lips set against the enemies of fun - cars jamming the roads, paper jamming his desk, all set off against the backdrop of dark, unpreposessing skies - wasn't the best time to choose for a free and frank discussion about our latest gizmo.
But he started it.
"I hope that new answerphone's recording properly. I'm sure it is, of course. It's just we don't seem to have any messages."
The old answaphone wasn't exactly something I held against my heart and cuddled in bed but, thinking of it, I'm filled with pangs of nostalgia. It didn't do much - it was lousy at jokes and I never did get it to make a decent toasted sandwich, but what it did, it accomplished with relatively little fuss. Press 'play' and it did. Press skip - it did. And so on for other typical ansaphone functions - 'stop' 'record message' 'delete'. No surprises. No frills.
The new one, on the other hand, appears to have ideas above its station.
"It is a bit complicated," I venture.
"It's not complicated," says Francis. "It's perfectly straightforward. You just wouldn't listen to me when I tried to show you how it worked."
By way of answer, I read out an extract from the instruction book.
"Here's what you have to do to play the messages, Francis.
"1. Press the MENU button
"2. Press the down arrow button four times
"3. The display shows Tam operation
"4. Press the Phone/OK button twice."
"Easy," says Francis.
"Not very," I say. "And definitely not very child-friendly."
"The children? Why would the children want to play messages?"
"Someone might leave them one. They get more calls than us these days," I start to say, then give up. And I can't help feeling that there may be a secret agenda here. Francis complains regularly about the phone bill. He points out, rightly, that as he's rarely here these days what with the agony of his daily commute, and has no friends to speak to as the daily commute leaves him no time to socialise, the bill is nothing to do with him.
Could it be that the answaphone is his representative on earth, acting, in his absence, as controller of the communications network? It's a thought that continues to haunt me on and off for the rest of the day as the phone stores up messages, none of which I'm able to play or return.
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11 comments:
What's wrong with the lady from BT? She seems to do her job very satisfactorily, and has no personal agendas that I know of.
She doesn't quite give you that warm technological glow that comes from down arrows and multiple choice buttons of course - but she could be your answer to nagging doubts on the score of Francis's possible secret remote-controlling tendencies....
Not sure what she costs, mind - and there IS something rather incriminatory about her tone when she announces that "You have NO messages" - she does make you feel that what she's really saying is "You have NO friends - not even one!".
But all the same, she may be worth a try.
Don't you get really excited when you see the ansaphone flash to tell you there is a message? I do! I can't wait to find out who it's from. And it's usually just from me, when I was testing it while walking round town.
Crystal xx
Set up BT message service OM; it's free, easy to use, and outside your beloved's jurisdiction.
Plus, it will then render his purchase obsolete and you will have the added pleasure of driving him crazy...
Tam operation?? I've given up reading instructions. If I can work it, great, if not the message, CD, oven etc will just have to wait until I can. Life is much calmer that way...
I sympathise. We got a new one recently - and I have to spark up the computer and open up the PDF file of the instructions in English (it's a French one - so that means it's bolshy and exaggerates) every time I need to hear a message. And the digital sound quality is APPALLLING Everyone sounds like they're calling from Atlantis.
Mya x
IB and Potty M: BT I guess it should be, then. Thanks for the advice. I think I was under the impression that it only stored one message at a time but I'm clearly way behind the times
CJ: I can't hear the messages either.....I sound about 80 and cantankerous, don't I?
Mya: So is French telecomms not doing a BT service. Francis would love them all.....
Mmm, cantankerous husband buys humorless answering machine to torture clueless wife and children. Not good. Go with voice mail immediately. Much easier and very user friendly.
Sweet I: I asked him about BT today and he says it only records one message at a time then overwrites it if someone else rings. But I will check.
I work on the basis that if someone really wants you they'll call back.
If Francis is concerned re the phone bills and ansaphone is definitely not the solution cos all one ends up doing is paying for someone else's call - God, do I sound like my mother?
Debio: Never having met your mother, I can't give a definitive answer - but on balance I suspect it's a 'yes'.
There's no displacement activity like technical gizmos, is there. My husband too has just returned with a new phone, which he has placed, wait for it, on the top of the highest book shelves in the flat. So that it can be there for emergencies. He is much taller than me, so he alone will be able to reach it down. I haven't yet worked out what this means, but whatever it is, it ain't good.
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