Toney
My Mother's Answering Machine
Philadelphia, PA
1995
It took forever for my mother to surrender and use an answering machine. She didn't like talking in to that empty space to leave a message. She thought it allowed me to screen all of my calls and subsequently, not answer her calls when she phoned me (I shouldn't have told her that I did that to some people, most people).
But finally, she agreed to enter the 20th century of phone technology. She got a machine and I drove two hours to see her and to program the machine to put all of her children on speed dial. Actually, this feature was the selling point for her. She just couldn't believe that she could push one specific button and she could connect with one of her kids.
She called her machine Toney, in honor of the instructions, "leave a message after the tone."
The machine was great until there was a black out. When this happened, all of the messages were lost and all of the programs speed dials were lost. This put my mother in a mild panic. So she would call me and leave a message, "Can you come to my house and fix Toney?"
The first time she called, I reminded my mother that I lived two hours away and that my six brothers and sisters who lived near her could also re-program the machine. But she insisted that I, and only I, could do this because I understood the sequence she liked to use to program our names. She used our birth order. There was no arguing with her. I made the two hour drive and programed Toney that day and every time he malfunctioned.
My Mother's Answering Machine
Philadelphia, PA
1995
It took forever for my mother to surrender and use an answering machine. She didn't like talking in to that empty space to leave a message. She thought it allowed me to screen all of my calls and subsequently, not answer her calls when she phoned me (I shouldn't have told her that I did that to some people, most people).
But finally, she agreed to enter the 20th century of phone technology. She got a machine and I drove two hours to see her and to program the machine to put all of her children on speed dial. Actually, this feature was the selling point for her. She just couldn't believe that she could push one specific button and she could connect with one of her kids.
She called her machine Toney, in honor of the instructions, "leave a message after the tone."
The machine was great until there was a black out. When this happened, all of the messages were lost and all of the programs speed dials were lost. This put my mother in a mild panic. So she would call me and leave a message, "Can you come to my house and fix Toney?"
The first time she called, I reminded my mother that I lived two hours away and that my six brothers and sisters who lived near her could also re-program the machine. But she insisted that I, and only I, could do this because I understood the sequence she liked to use to program our names. She used our birth order. There was no arguing with her. I made the two hour drive and programed Toney that day and every time he malfunctioned.
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