Stupid Phone

You know what I dislike?


I dislike our phone. It, oh, it just broils my ham. Every single morning, my Mom has to come into my room. "Keeeev," she wails quietly. "There's a werewolf chaaaaaasing yoooou."

Have you ever had someone guide you through a horrific dream?

"It's gaining, Kev. You're in a foooooorest," she suggests.

"Run faaaaaster, it's gaaaaining... try to climb that treee, it's your only hoooope..."

Meanwhile, I'm breaking out in a cold sweat. Dammit!


She has to come in my room to give me the phone. Every single morning. That's annoying. I have heard that certain phone bases have the ability to run two cordless phones (handsets, not to be confused with headsets). I've also heard that some have the ability to run 10, but I would see that as pointless unless you had several phone lines (or several base units).

It is a cheap Walmart special, which I have continually warned my parents about at every remembrance. The base lost its ability to ring, and the handset does not make a very loud ring anymore. So if I am in my room, and the handset is, God forbid, in the living room, or, God forbid, under a piece of cloth, I cannot hear the phone ring. If I am in the living room --- 10 feet from the base --- and the handset is in my room, I cannot hear it. It's unsettling.


It seems to me that several problems could be solved by upgrading from a Walmart special to a decent-quality multi-handset phone system.

• The belt clip fell off of this phone, and typically new phones do not possess broken belt clips. How I long for a belt clip.
  
• The new phone would actually ring. Oh, how I would enjoy that!
  
• Nowadays systems typically come with several handsets (and charger bases for them), so I could keep one in my room and my Mom would not have to give me the phone every morning.
• The speakerphone might actually work.
• The possibility for more range (this one has a 30' "clear" range, and about a 50' "very static" range)
• Less chance of phone dying randomly and leaving me without a phone.

Doing a little research, I came upon this prototype (I call it a prototype but it isn't? Why do I do that?): Uniden Phone Thinger (TRU9485-2).

It has all the aforementioned features of modern phones (except possibly the range- it is reported both as "spectacular" and "can't move more than 5 feet from the base," I lean to the former), plus several neat pluses, such as the ability to set one up as a monitor. I guess you turn it to monitor, and it transmits audio to the other handset. This could be very handy depending on how great the range is. It also has a walkie-talkie feature.

The price is a bit difficult for my tastes; the last phone I personally bought cost $45, and it was from CostCo, and it broke very soon, and it only had one handset. So another handset and $40 put into quality is how I look at it. According to reviews, the speakerphone is so good your enemies cannot tell you use it. I think there's a "record" feature too. Huh.


Of course, my dream is to have a headset as well. You know, a microphone and earpiece. I wouldn't know where to begin finding those. I do know that I like pretty designs like the one pictured at right, though, because they only take up one ear.











Anyway, it's a bit out of my personal, private price range.


Oh, sigh.