I went up to Southport yesterday to see mother. On the way back I couldn’t find my mobile, thinking I’d left it at a garage in Ormskirk where I stopped to take on fuel (as it transpired, it had actually fallen out of my pocket and was lodged between the seat and the transmission tunnel).
As I was already a fair way into the journey I though I’d phone Hay and ask her to call my mobile with the possible view to whoever found it sending it to me by post. On arriving at a motorway service station and finding a phone box, I suddenly realised I didn’t know Hay’s mobile number. In fact, the only phone number I know is my own. I had absolutely no way to contact her – I didn’t even know the Caravans’ landline number.
Rescue eventually came in the form of the satnav, which happened to have all the relevant phone numbers stored in it. The episode made me realise just how reliant we have become on mobile phones and especially the address books. We no longer remember long phone numbers like we did years ago – we merely look up names. We're hostages to technology.
3 comments:
Phone numbers were easier to remember before area codes complicated the issue, but I make sure know the land line numbers that are important to me, though I give up on mobile ones except mine! Which, by the way, I have been known to ring from my landline, when I've not been able to locate my mobile phone. Works like a charm.
Jinksy: I dare say it does, but not in a car when you have no 'other' phone (it sounds like I'm describing Winifred Attwell's 'other' piano - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winifred_Atwell).
Strangely enough, I can still remember my old number from when I lived in Southport, many decades ago. 01704 564780. I wonder who owns it now?
Post a Comment