Mono Monday : : Converse

I thought this quaint way to converse had gone completely extinct with the advent of the personal phone, but it seems that there are still a few pay phones around. This one has a bit of graffiti on one side and looks a bit grimy, but it is remarkably unvandalized and, I checked, it still works. It reminds me of my friend in Berkeley who refused to carry a cell phone and was always looking for a pay phone which were becoming scarcer than hen's teeth.

 Odd emergencies seemed to happen to my friend with some regularity. They wouldn't have been emergencies if she had had a cell phone, but the emergencies tended to compound themselves when she tried to find a phone to use to call for help. 

I was with her once. I had had surgery on my foot and got around on crutches. She kindly volunteered to pick me up and take me out to lunch. While we were eating  lunch, she keeled over in a dead faint. A quick thinking waitress caught her before she hit the floor. An ambulance was summoned. The paramedics put her on a gurney, then looked at me, realized I was on crutches and said  'what do we do with her?' I told them I might be on crutches but was perfectly compos mentis and that they should take me to the hospital with them. 

Fortunately I had a cell phone. I couldn't reach my friend's husband,...he didn't have a cell phone either...but I eventually reached OilMan. He contacted my friend's neighbor and they worked out a very convoluted plan for getting three cars home with two drivers and nobody making a second trip. 

By this time my friend had recovered, but had to wait while the very handsome Italian doctor in the emergency department sat at his computer trying to figure out what had caused her to faint. We left her to await his verdict and figure out how to get hold of her husband while we dealt with her car, since her husband would be arriving in yet another car to pick her up.

I thought to myself, now for sure she will get a phone, but she didn't. Her children finally got her one 'for emergencies' but she refuses to take it out of her car...

The handsome Italian doctor finally figured out that she had fainted from the pain caused by a blocked salivary gland. The treatment?....

Lemon drops....