Call me, call me, any, anytime

Now that my toilets are under control, I've turned my attention to other household matters. Namely, my caller ID unit. I have a phone with built-in caller ID in my living room, and my tv (also in my living room) has caller ID that unreliably pops up on the screen via my satellite dish, but neither of these caller ID apparatussessess is as useful as my original stand-alone caller ID unit that I bought in like, 1997, or somewhere thereabouts.

This unit, which I keep in my bedroom, has a nice, large display that lights up as a call comes in, so that even in the middle of the night, I can clearly see what a-hole is calling me drunk at 12:40 a.m. on a Tuesday (all of my real friends know who exactly who that would've been, but that's not under discussion here). It also blinked a loud, insistent red light after a call had come in, until a cleared it. This was a forceful, urgent little light that could get my attention from across the room - even from the living room if I had an unobstructed view into the bedroom and to my bedside table. "Somebody called! They called!!! I know who it was!!!!" If I want that information from my living room telephone, *I* have to go to *it* and *ask.* I have to pick up the handset and push a series of buttons to see who called and when. I could go DAYS without ever knowing I'd even had a call. Weeks even.

And if the same number called more than once, the phone one only shows the most recent one. So, if someone were, say, calling me repeatedly from jail (turns out he was dialing the wrong number), that phone would show no record of how many times Tyrell had attempted to call Shaniqua at my home. Bedside Standalone Caller ID said, "10 times in the span of the last hour and half. Do you need the specific call times?"

So, you can see why Bedside Standalone Caller ID is far superior to phone caller ID and intermittent satellite tv caller ID. There's just no comparison. Well, this was all fine and dandy until I got Ava. Ava is my cat. She's about a year and a half old, and I got her when she was about 5 months old. She's given me a lot of material in the last year. I just haven't recorded it here yet, because I hoped to put a picture of her in here when I introduced her. But I don't have my digital camera yet, so here's a picture of a cat that looks similar to her:



Ava is a Siamese mix of some kind. I don't know mixed with what, but the vet says she's definitely got some Siamese, which I knew because I had a Siamese growing up. Anyway, she's white, with blue eyes, a tabby tail that looks like it belongs to a racoon, a heart-shaped blotch on her behind, a couple of splotches on her head by her ears, and one on one of her feet - like points, in other words. Ava is a handful. Maybe it's because she's a kitten. Maybe it's because she's psycho. But she loves me and greets me at the door when I get home and likes to get up on my shoulder at 3 a.m. and knead my shoulder and purr like chainsaw, so what more can you ask?

Well, I could ask that she stop chewing on cords in my house. See, this where we come back to the caller ID. She chewed through the caller ID cord. She killed it. It could no longer blink at me, or tell me who called, or light up as a call came through. It was a dark relic of information-filled past times. I was sad. And I had mean thoughts about Ava - you know, what with her having giving my favorite ankle boots the same treatment and any number of other items around the house. But I put that aside, and thought about how to resurrect Bedside Standalone Caller ID (BSCI).

I went to Radio Shack. I found an adapter that would work with BSCI, and an adaptaplug that seemed to fit. I bought them. $15. I took them home. I plugged them all in, and the adapter wasn't exactly right. It was kinda loose. It kinda came out. So, I taped it. That half-worked. So, I taped it and wrapped the cord in such a way as to create tension to hold the plug in place. It kinda sorta worked except when it didn't. I frequently came home to the plug no longer completing the connection, and BSCI dark and empty. Oh, and Ava chewed the cord again. (Don't start with me on cures for that little habit - I've tried everything - sprays, yelling, shooting water, wrapping them with electrical tape. So far, only wrapping cords in bubble wrap seems to have deterred her, and THAT looks good.)

So, I ask for a cord-protector set for Christmas. It's like this sheath you run your cords through, and it attaches to the baseboard so your cords are tucked out of view (and out of chew range). My mom loves me, so she got it for me. Back to Radio Shack for fresh cord supplies. This time I take the unit with me, along with the original adapter, to get JUST the right plug. We find it. It's adaptaplug size Q. But it has to be ordered online - they're out of stock. Of course they are. A few days later, UPS guy delivers my purchase, and we try again. I hook it all up, and...BSCI does nothing. Pardon?

I don't know if BSCI has given up, or the converter is bad or what, but it ain't respondin. Trip #3 to Radio Shack. They show me BSCI can work on batteries. Perhaps that would be the best choice. "Great!" I said, feeling like a moron I hadn't figured that out sooner. "No more cords!" I put the battery in, it starts working. Yeah, well, there's no more cords, but there's also no more lighting up when a call comes in. And the urgent little red light I used to get is but an anemic little blip you have to know to look for. This just will not do. But I don't want to buy another adapter and adaptaplug, and I don't want to go back to Radio Shack. I'm tired of them now.

So, I did what anyone would do. I turned to eBay for a replacement. I found a SWB standalone caller ID that someone was selling. I got it for $5.50. They *say* it's in great shape. We'll see. I just did the transaction yetserday, so it'll be a few days before I get it in the mail. It'd better light up when a call comes in. And it'd better have a flashing light that flags me down from across the room. I don't think I'll throw the old one away yet. I'm not ready to let go of it just yet. Maybe someday I can bring it back to its prime.