Strong and Weak Connections

The phone rang. You know, the land line, which is something some of us still have these days, and we all know why this house has to continue to have one. So I asked Joey to answer it. We were in my bedroom and the phone was closer to him on the nearby nightstand.

He got up, picked up the receiver, and said, "I don't know which button to press."

"Just say 'hello'", I said. And he put the receiver to his ear and said, "Hello?"

I expected him to hand the phone to me, but he didn't. A quick exchange with the caller, and then I heard, "No, I can't. There's something connected to this phone."

Back when I had to go and purchase and repurchase new phones, I purchased a cheap corded phone for the bedroom because it's always helpful to have a corded phone for those occasions when we lose electricity since cordless phones won't work. God knows my cell phone is practically useless, too. Remember, I'm in a dead zone hole over here.

Anyway, I had to laugh because seriously, there are still plenty of corded phones around. Right? It's not like I put a rotary phone out, for goodness sake. Because I could certainly understand and expect him not to recognize one of those.

In other not-so-exciting news, it snowed today. it did. Nothing to write home about, but the white stuff did fly in the middle of October in my neighborhood. If summer seemed short, I think autumn will seem even shorter.

Oh, and here's an interesting fact I that was brought to my attention today: Jeffrey got lost in a store.

Yup. Lost at Wal-Mart apparently. I picked him up at school and as we were leaving, the director told me how he told them the story of how he got lost at the store. They were asking the children what to do if they ever got lost in a store, and Jeffrey raised his hand and told his story.

The thing is , I don't remember him ever getting lost. Not ever. I mean, we've seen and done a lot worthy for recording and remembering, but I couldn't recall anything about any of my boys getting lost in a store.

So once in the van, I interrogated Jeffrey, because I had to determine if my memory was truly failing me or if I was even in this so-called story at all.

"When did you get lost, Jeffrey?"

"A long time ago." Okay, he's five. That could mean anytime last week or last month.

"Where did you get lost?"

"At Wal-Mart"

"Were your brothers with us?"

"No."

"So what did you do when you got lost?"

"Nothing. I stayed where I was. That's what I told them at school. When you get lost, just stay where you are."

"So..., did I find you?"

"Yes."

"Did I know you were lost?"

"No."

"Oh. So then you really weren't lost."

"Yes I was. But I just waited in that aisle and then you found me."

"Were you waiting a long time?"

"No."

"And when was this, again?"

"A long time ago."

I suppose that if I had had him tethered to me with something like, oh, I don't know, a cord of some kind, he would have never gotten lost. It's always so nice when your kindergartner shares what he learned at school, and even nicer when he can teach you something you never even knew.