Technology

My Mom is afraid of the telephone.

No, I don't mean that she has some phobia that a phone is going to attack her or anything like that. My Mom doesn't like the telephone for (at least) two reasons that I'm aware of:

1. Mom does NOT like phone trees. Now that customer service representatives have gone by the wayside in favor of technology, Mom does not like to make the phone calls necessary to conduct her business.

You know the story. Press 1 for English; press 2 for Spanish. Press 1 if you'd like to know our hours of operation; press 2 if you have a metered account; press 3 if you have a non-metered account; press 4 for more options. My Mom HATES dealing with phone trees. I don't know why she finds it so difficult to deal with,but she'd much prefer speaking to a real, live person. Technology defeats her. Someone else can deal with the phone trees, but it's not going to be her.

2. Mom can't hear all that well on the phone. We have a telephone that amplifies sound, but she still has some trouble hearing. There are a lot of times that she's speaking on the phone and I'll overhear her say "What? I can't hear you really well." When she's not looking, I'll dial up the volume on our telephone a bit in order to help her out. However, I have to remember to turn it down when I answer the phone, otherwise, it's as if the caller is shouting at me!

The funny thing is that I have been wondering for the past year why Mom always wants me to answer the phone at the house. I thought it was because she did not want to deal with solicitors, telemarketers, and survey-takers. Now, I understand a bit more about how her senses are diminishing with age and it occurred to me that she wants to hide her "disability" (from me? from herself?) for just a little longer. As long as it's not really harmful, I guess it's ok that we leave her with this illusion.