The Lair

So we have this new cordless phone in the house. The venerable and much abused unit packed it in. In retrospect, a cordless phone packing it in is unsurprising. No one in my residence is actually going to make it into a cricket team (or indeed, any sports team). Of course, in our mind; we think we’re sporting superstars.

This is probably why we launch the cordless phone on uncatchable trajectories and expect the recipient to grab it out of thin air. The gap between our expectation and reality is why the cordless usually bounces about twice on the floor before the intended recipient gets hold of it.

But I digress. New cordless phone. Dire warnings about not flinging it around etc

As the (apparent) resident technologist, it was my job to “figure out how it works and tell everyone else”. By and large, I can accomplish this task (only the early model VCR defeated me. I simply could not get that record-via-barcode-scanner business to work. I still smart at this failure). So I sit down with the instruction manual (not in Engrish this time around) and figure out how the cordless works. Among other things, the cordless allows one to set its name. You know, sort of like a screensaver.

Being in an inspired mood; I ingeniously settled on calling the phone “upstairs”. Because you know, upstairs phone. As opposed to the other unnamed phones which should be incarcerated downstairs.

Like I said, creative.

Later that day, I was accosted by an indignant parent. The phone, I was told, did not work. What did I do to it, etc.

I donned my best “who me? I did nozzin” face. I did nudding, guv. But do tell, what exactly is wrong with the phone?

“Well”, fumes the parent. “I came downstairs with the phone while I was taking a call and it still said ‘upstairs’. But I’m downstairs now. Why didn’t it say downstairs?”.

Oh. Err.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is going to be so inscrutable to ordinary mortals that they just should give up and not bother.

drac, 2008