This is only a test

I was building an epic sandwich when the phone rang.

It’s the landline. Whatever that means in a cordless world.

The sound simultaneously startles and annoys me.  I don’t know who could be calling the house at 6:30 in the morning on a school day, but I can guess: it’s either a robocall or an emergency. 

For some reason, our landline has become the phone of least importance.

All I know is this ringing phone is either a family member (who is relying on actual memory instead of digital memory) calling to say they’ve fallen and can’t get up; or a business to whom I have refused to give my cell phone number, asking me to take advantage of some “UHmaizing” opportunity. 

Chances are high that it’s the latter rather than the former. My husband, if he were to answer, would hang up after yelling an obscenity into the phone. As if the recording on the other end will dutifully comply. 

Of course, it could be a school administrator, perhaps, in a prerecorded message, letting us know some random bits of information and how they plan to proceed.

Information that isn’t intended to inform so much as cover some base that needs covering.

Maybe buses are late ... or a student posting a threat on social media. Nothing credible. Systems normal ... Keep Calm and Carry On.

Whatever the case, it’s still a ringing phone; a thing that siphons my away attention from the fury of day planning and lunch packing.

Of course, I will run from room to room trying to find a working handset — one that has been plugged in correctly and charged to capacity — before the answering machine clicks on and takes over.

As I chase the ringing from the kitchen to the living room and into the den, I am aware of how useless my endeavor. The working phones have been abandoned between couch cushions or stockpiled in a bedroom half-a-house-away by the only member of the family who still calls people routinely: my son. A prince of the new-age play: He leaves the caller on speaker while they dig around in a virtual world together.

No. The phones I am looking for are silent. The ringing ones - if I find them - will tell me they are “busy” when I press “talk.” The quiet ones have just lost their charge.

How I miss the reliability of the rotary desk phone of my formative years. How many hours did I spend on it chatting with friends as my mother warned I would get a “cauliflower ear.”

These cordless phones are less than a decade old. One of these days I will fix them with a total replacement, grumbling the whole time about repair being a thing of some bygone age.

Finally, the answering machine picks up, and I return to the kitchen and the Prince and the Peanut Butter sandwich I abandoned. 

A familiar voice goes through my head: “This is a test of the emergency broadcast system. ... this is only a test.”

Had it been an actual emergency your cellphone would be the next device to ring.