William Marvel: Incommunicado

Sometimes I listen to my wife, and sometimes I regret it. The telephone fiasco falls into both categories.

Last winter, after years of rising monthly bills for the land line that has been in this house since 1954, she started doing research on other alternatives and came up with an option that cost exactly half as much for basic service, with no additional charges for long-distance calls. Since all but one of her innumerable relatives live on the far side of the Missouri River, free long-distance service alone seemed like a deal-maker. Nor should I blame it all on my far-better half, for Our Favorite Millennial assured us that "there has to be a better deal out there somewhere," and her informed opinions are rarely wrong (except maybe about politics). So, on the assurance that I could keep my 68-year-old phone number, I finally abandoned my receiver-in-the-cradle phone in the living room (and the rotary model upstairs, on which I could still receive calls), and replaced them both with something I am told is called an Android.