T - 7: And My Number Is Beechwood 45789

Here's a quick quiz. What do ET, Linda and Lily's friend Aden all have in common? (Aden, you may remember, is the little boy who wanted to come home with Lily and me the other day.)

The answer: they all had trouble phoning home.

In ET's case, as I recall, the problem had more to do with distance and technology. Aden's problem was more direct. He didn't know his phone number. As it turns out, neither does Linda.

We've had our current phone number since we moved in the year 2000. However, during the transition from our other house, we kept the old number active and had those calls forwarded. In keeping with this month's theme of cutting out unnecessary costs, I decided that eight years was long enough to pay the phone company for a number we didn't use anymore and I stopped the call-forwarding service Monday.

On Tuesday, I got an angry call on my mobile. "You shut off the old number," said my darling. "But I told you I was closing down the call forwarding," said I. And in the tone of voice that has given her an 87% winning percentage over the course of our marriage, Linda said, "But you didn't tell me when you were going to do it, and you didn't tell me what our phone number is. You know I don't know it!"

So of course, it was my fault. In my defense, I had assumed Linda just doesn't care to know her phone numbers since she has never learned her mobile number, either. Silly me. I really do know better. Her life with electronics is like shaker furniture - functional and beautiful in its complete simplicity.

Take, for example, voicemail. Call her up on any of her numbers (none of which she will have given you, by the way) and the voice on the machine isn't even Linda's. Apparently, she isn't even available to record the message telling you she isn't available. Some women don't do windows. Linda doesn't do voicemail.

But it is a mistake to think LK is a Luddite, antagonistic to new technology. She is among the first to embrace new gadgets, but she is equally swift in refusing to learn all the bells and whistles (and even some of the basics) that come with them. As she says, of course she could learn them but why bother when there is someone else who will end up taking care of it for you.

That makes good sense. Until the day you can't phone home because you don't know the number.