My Family & Me: Can you hear me now?

Iwouldn’t call it a love-hate relationship exactly. True, I did incinerate a cellphone once, and drowned a second one, but those were strictly accidents. Certainly nothing to justify the retaliation my cellphones exacted.

My burning of the phone happened on a snowy December day when I needed to burn my non-recyclable trash. Since navigating the trip to the burn barrel required traipsing both up and down a slight hill, I decided to take my cellphone with me in case I fell.

After setting the trash alight, I started back toward the house, only to realize I didn’t have my phone.

“Oh no,” I moaned, remembering I had placed the phone atop the garbage before leaving the house to allow me to carry the ignitor. The phone was a melting, glittering, black blob in the trash barrel’s bottom.

The second phone’s sad demise had more to do with the “waste not, want not” philosophy ingrained in me as a child. We had stopped at a hoagie shop and bought sandwiches and drinks. In this establishment, drinks came in bottles, and, of course, we bought the large, economy sizes. When we left, I recapped my drink and stuck it in my purse. Oops!

Truly, I tried to revive

it, but all the rice in China could not have saved it!

In the spring of 1992, my sister Ginny, her husband, Mick, and I flew to Las Vegas. In her instructions prior to take-off, the flight attendant directed all passengers to turn off their cellphones. We tried to comply, but my cellphone refused to cooperate.

Frantically, I passed it to Mick, who was and is very adept at technology, but the phone wouldn’t shut down.

As the flight attendant walked down the aisle checking seatbelt compliance, I hurriedly stuck the offending phone (or so I thought) into an outside purse pocket (possibly jeopardizing the entire flight) instead of handing it over to the attendant to chuck out a window before take-off.

When we arrived at our hotel, my phone was missing. My calls to the airline’s lost and found department were unsuccessful. As a result, we three were joined at the hip the entire vacation.

Apparently, no one ever told cellphones that “revenge is never sweet,” and on a subsequent trip to Las Vegas, which included nine others and the rental of two cars, we realized that cellphones for everyone would be a logistic necessity,

Thinking I was playing it smart and avoiding those astronomical roaming charges (whatever they were) I rented a track phone and asked the provider to give me a Las Vegas area code. Who knew there would be a Las Vegas resident with the same number?

A really nice guy, he would call me and relay messages about when and where we were meeting for dinner and shows and I would inform him of any calls I had received for him. Not the worst of my phone catastrophes; that was still to come.

In 2015, my son, Tim, his wife, Laura, and I joined my niece, Sue, for yet another Las Vegas vacation. Since both Sue and I were Las Vegas veterans, we each had our favorite places to introduce Tim and Laura to, and we were all having a marvelous time.

The one fly in the ointment was that although I could make outgoing calls, I never knew if anyone was actually receiving them as my phone remained mute. The phone also refused all incoming calls.

A nuisance, but no big deal until Laura, Tim and I embarked on a bus tour to the Grand Canyon, which included stopping at three scenic sites.

At the first site, the bus driver instructed us to be at the bus depot in two hours to move on to the second site. We waited our turn to step out on a scenic overlook, spectacular in its view. Laura, a talented and avid photographer, was busy snapping pictures, and I decided to make room for the others behind us waiting their turn for the overlook and retreated to a nearby bench.

Eventually, I saw Tim and Laura coming in my direction. Since my pace was considerably slower than theirs, I hurriedly rose and started walking forward, knowing they would soon catch up to me. They caught up with me, then passed me, and I realized I had mistaken another couple for them. I returned to my bench and waited, and waited and waited.

Realizing we had somehow lost connections, I started on down the trail, periodically placing calls telling them I was on my way and to wait for me. I never found them and had no way of telling if my calls were getting through.

The two-hour deadline had to be getting close, so I decided to get to the bus pick-up station and turned back, thinking I was retracing my steps. After a time I found myself wandering a dusty road, with friendly elk regarding me curiously.

There were no longer any pedestrians, but an occasional car appeared and I flagged it down seeking directions. Wouldn’t you know, everyone was a tourist?

Finally, an elderly couple stopped, apparently one who had been touring for quite a while. Their rear seat was crowded with garbage bags of belongings. “I’ll slide those together,” the Good Samaritan said, “and we’ll get you somewhere that can help.”

A stop at a souvenir store and a teary phone conversation elicited the information that Tim, Laura and the bus driver were scouring the back roads looking for me.

“What about the rest of the bus passengers?” There was trepidation in my voice.

“Oh, they’re at the third site,” Tim assured me. “The driver took them on to the designated spots and then he returned to look for you. Like the Royal Mounties, ‘who always get their man,’ he says he’s never abandoned a passenger here yet.”

When we picked up our fellow bus mates and the driver announced Mama was found, a cheer went up. Periodically, on the trip back to the city, the driver would glance in the mirror, and ask jokingly, “You doing all right back there, Mama? Are you still with us?”I could only nod my head mutely.

Over the years and the many trips I have made to Las Vegas, I have enjoyed many wonderful sites and shows, including three performances of the incomparable Cirque Du Soleil at Treasure Island.

Unfortunately, now, when I think of Las Vegas, I no longer picture the spectacular grandeur of the Grand Canyon or incredible acrobats flying through the air or fantasy creatures rising from the swirling mist.

Instead, I picture an older (I’m being kind, here) white-haired woman trudging along in her orthopedic shoes, a cellphone glued to her ear.

Kathy Young Wonderling is a former Spirit reporter who wrote a weekly column, My Family & Me, starting in the early 2000s. An octogenarian, Kathy is a widow, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, sister and aunt. With such a large family, she has too many memories not to share.