I'd Like To Make A Little Announcement

Don't hate me because I'm beautiful. Or because I'm a snarky wench who deserves to get her comeuppance. Nope. Hate me because I'm the proud possessor of a BRAND SPANKIN' NEW OFFICIAL NEWMENTIA SNOW DAY!

Oh, yes. It's like a delectable nectar sipped slowly through a twisty straw. I revel in the afterglow of the phone tree magic.

Actually, that's a little white lie. My branch on the phone tree grows through my cell phone. The cell phone that does not receive reception in my dark basement lair. The cell phone that I leave on the burgundy kitchen counter of the Mansion, just in front of the wooden paper plate holder etched with the phrase "Everyday China." The cell phone that is usually spirited away to the #1 son's room in times of snow day hope, so as to be heard and pounced upon at the slightest ring. Of all nights for #1 to screen my calls...

He ran down the steps at 6:30, to tell me that when he checked the number on my ignored phone, it was a colleague I would never make nor receive a personal call from. The branch above me on the phone tree. Yet there was no message. I told #1 to look on my list taped inside the pantry door, and call the branch under me. We have done this in the past when I am indisposed. His word is as good as mine when coming through my phone. #1 was reluctant, what with no official message, and the announcement not yet showing on the news channels or web pages. Nor had the district's automated call come in on the land line. Which kind of defeats the purpose and spontaneity and UNBRIDLED JOY of the phone tree announcement. I reminded him that our tin can phone system sometimes takes two hours to show a phone message.

Thirty minutes later, I observed our cancellation on the scroll at the bottom of Channel 2. I hollered up to #1, who said he had found the phone message and left a message in kind on the phone of the lower branch.

Modern technology sucks the sap right out of the insider phone tree.