Gadgets

I recently spent time in the hospital and while there, took note of all the little gadgets used by the doctors and nurses. Electronic gadgets attached to tubes, machines and switches, constantly measuring, counting and recording.

I adapted quickly to the nurse's routine, and was given a labor saving device resembling a TV remote with nine rows of three buttons that allowed the patient to control a myriad of things just by pressing a button. A transceiver permitted talking and listening thru the same small slotted area at the top of the device.

When I pressed the button, which turned the TV on and off, it didn't work. I pressed the button for the nurse and I heard a voice asking me how they could help. I replied that I couldn't get the TV turned on and would like someone to help me.

In a moment or two, a nurse came and replaced the device with another which was in good working order and I settled down with the TV running in the background while I read a book. I was able to listen for any news alerts and still concentrate on my paperback mystery in the genre of an Agatha Christie.

Not long after I started reading, my phone rang. I picked up the device and was going to press the answer button, but before I could, the caller hung up. I glanced thru the rows of buttons to see which one to press for answering the phone and didn't see one. There were several buttons that could have served , but I was unsure and pressed the nurse's button and asked how to answer the phone. She said to just pick it up.

I replied that I had done that but didn't see which button to press for answering a phone call. She repeated the instruction to just pick it up. I asked her to please send a nurse to show me. In a moment two nurses came and I held the device up so they could see that I WAS HOLDING IT. I laughed with them when they pointed to the phone sitting on the seat of the the chair next to me. I had been trying to answer the phone with the nurse's call gadget.

The comedian Wanda Sykes does a routine where she thinks she's lost her cell phone. She tells her friend to hold for a second while she looks in her purse. But when she can't locate it, her friend tells her to call back when she's found it.

On occasion I have clicked a TV channel on my house phone, or started pressing the numbers of a TV remote when I wanted to make a phone call. I'm certain there are lots of stories like these making the rounds, similar to stories 'computer support' published a few years ago when 'help calls' from new computer owners circled the globe. [no, that's not a coffee holder, that's a DVD player]

Wanda Sykes: Lost cell phone routine