Home Phone Book As Back-Up For Cellphone Numbers
Introduction
The phone in your hand will make it easy to call your family in case of emergency because contacts are listed as: honey, darling, boo, baby, son, daughter, doctor, boss, best friend, cousin, rabbi, alfa or pastor.
However, there is a problem if something bad happens to you and the device, if phone numbers are not written down somewhere. You might lose all your data when the phone’s battery overheats and affects the SIM card.
Electronic Age
The advantage of the marriage between phones, desktop computers or laptops is that we have a back-up if we lose mobile phones due to negligence or theft.
Setting up that electronic marriage makes life easier because you don’t have to lug your laptop around since contacts and documents are also in your pocket, in your phone.
However, we still need to go back to basics and have telephone numbers in a notebook that is kept at home, in case of emergency.
The problem is, we don’t write down phone numbers anymore. That is why most people freak out when they lose their phones. This also leads to embarrassment when relatives and friends realise that we don’t know their phone numbers by heart. You know your sister’s cell number, right?
When mobile phones hit the scene, we had a notebook where we wrote them down before transferring them into the device.
Not anymore. When I meet that co-worker from the ministry after donkey years, I just take her phone and punch in the digits. I can even follow them up with an e-mail or electronic business card.
Cellphone Privacy
Our phones have become our lives, public lives that are known to family, friends, banks and the taxman. They are also hiding places for murky secret lives and forbidden love.
That is why we don’t want the kids, spouses, parents or anybody touching them, although we have passwords. We get mad and give them a short lecture about invasion of privacy.
That is where the small book in the television stand drawer will come in handy. It will have phone numbers for your public life.
· Hospitals/doctors
· Babysitters
· Teenage sons and daughters
· Grandparents
· Next door neighbour
· The boss
· Business partners
· Dentist
· Lawyers
· Your ex-husband or wife, especially if kids are too young to have phones.
· Your aunt who lives in Toronto, Abuja, Delhi, Manila or Canberra
· Your father’s best fried who lives in San Francisco.
These are just possible important numbers that can be stored in the small phone book. Families know who should be called in an emergency, so these phone books will be tailor made.
Designated Spot
http://nonqaba-cinemamytake.blogspot.ca/2014/06/zulu-6-put-it-here.html
The home phone book will have its own special place that is known to all family members. You need it even more if you live alone so that the landlord or friends can find it if you drop dead or rushed to the hospital. Write EMERGENCY CONTACTS on the cover.
It is important that family members return the phone book to the designated area after using it. The ideal place would be telephone stands but very few homes have them now. It could also be kept in the following places:
· Kitchen drawer with placemats
· One of the drawers in the flat screen T.V. stand
· In one of the bookcases
· Linen cupboard
· Bedside drawer
What is important is accessibility. For example, it should not be high up in a bookcase because kids might not be able to reach it, in case mummy gets sick.
911
You will not call a family meeting to announce where the phone book is kept, but you will use it often enough for the kids to know its designated area.
You will also make it an interactive process, especially when kids are young and loving, before the ‘I hate my parents’ stage.
- · Your grandmother has moved. Bring the home phone book and write down her new address and home telephone number.
- · How is your new school? Bring the home phone book and write down the school telephone number.
- · If anything happens to me remember to call 911. (It is 999 in the U.K.)
Kids will therefore know the importance of updating information and returning the home phone book to its designated place. It will also improve their spelling and geographical knowledge.
Landline
It is still a good idea to have a home phone, especially because service providers usually bundle up all the products:
- home phone
- mobile phones
- cable
Kids should also be taught how to answer the phone properly and not shout, "Yo!"