Carol’s Column

Trapped with a teenage daughter

THIS past week has, without doubt, been the worst time of my life.

What could cause such misery, you might ask? I will tell you. The lack of a telephone. There is nothing that can compare to being incarcerated in a house with a teenage daughter and a telephone that is out of order.

It happened this way. Last Wednesday the heavens opened and Johannesburg was flooded. Our house, which is largely roofless due to our extensive building operations, which the builder has said will be completed in the next three years or so, was also flooded.

When the waters receded, we discovered that our phone was out of order. Nicky was not happy. "I have to phone Mandy immediately," she screeched. Teenage daughters tend to screech when distressed. "We have a biology test tomorrow and I simply have to discuss the sex life of a centipede," she added.

On Thursday morning, I phoned the "To Report Out of Order (office hours only)" complaints section on Page 5 of the Johannesburg directory.

After a lengthy pause, a charming young woman told me there was a fault in the cable and that 2 013 phones were out of order. Regrettably mine was one of them, but technicians were working around the clock and would repair the fault as soon as possible.

By Thursday night our service had not been re-installed and things were tense on the home front. "This is ruining my social life," said my daughter Nicky dramatically as she shook her mane of hair and flashed her eyes. "I am cut off from the world. I could die."

"Go and do your homework," I muttered sympathetically.

On Friday morning I phoned the "Out of Order" number (once again from a telephone not in my area, of course) and spoke to seven or eight charming young women who informed me that the technicians were still working on my phone but that it would be back in action by lunch time.

At noon, the phone was still dead, as it was at 7 that night. I came home to find Nicky sitting on the roof fanning a 2 m-high fire and sending smoke signals to Mandy Goldstein.

The Rosebank fire-engine team, called out by a worried neighbour, joined us for dinner.

The weekend was indescribable. The silence was unbearable. It hung heavily over the entire house and Nicky went into a total decline.

"So what are you doing tonight?" I asked brightly as we sat under the oak tree eating supper (the dining room was uninhabitable). "Nothing," she said as she turned the wors in the skottelbraai. "I am cut off from the world, nobody can find me."

"Why don't you go and use the Hall's phone?" I suggested.

"Ma, I have at least eight hours talking to catch up," said my daughter disdainfully, "and if I speak on their phone I will be depriving Michael Hall of his lifeline. I couldn't do that. It would not be caring."

Speed was of the essence. On Monday, I woke up, tucked my nightie into my jeans, popped on a hat and shot up to the local telephone department offices where another charming young woman fiddled with a computer, asked me if I was an essential service and then announced that come what may, our phone would be working by lunch time.

By Monday afternoon I was desperate. I'd phoned the "To Report Out of Order (office hours only)", "Test-a-Number (office hours only)" and "Only Essential Services (after hours)" at least 73 times. Each time somebody told me the technicians were working round the clock and my phone would soon be re-connected.

When I arrived home, I discovered Nicky had packed her suitcases and moved in with Mandy Goldstein. The phone was still dead.

On Tuesday I hired a drip and a wheelchair and wheeled myself into the head office of the telecommunications department. "Have you got a problem?" asked the nattily dressed official with the hairline moustache. "I am dying, I must have a phone," I wheezed wheezily, which is the only way to wheeze.

"Modom, I'll try and get your service reconnected in the near future," he said, "so if you could just hang on until then."

On Wednesday, I heard rumours that the technicians were working in our area. For an hour I prowled the streets of Parkwood searching for the distinctive white post office van. And then, I saw a herd of vans on the corner of Chester Road. There were at least six men down a hole working on multi-coloured phone wires, the ones that make such pretty bracelets.

"Please, you have to help me," I begged.

"Madam, please get off your knees, the road's muddy," said one.

"My family has broken up, my daughter has run away from home because her social life is in ruins and I am desperate because we are phoneless."

"I'll see what I can do," he said with a wink.

I returned home feeling sick and then, just as I'd given up all hope, two knights armed with ladders and screwdrivers arrived to fix the phone. I was so overcome that I fainted with shock and had to be revived by being dipped head first into the flooded drainage channel surrounding the house.

It took exactly half a minute for the technicians to fix the phone. One shinned up a pole, the other twiddled a wire, and, voila, the phone chirped merrily.

Never before in the history of the telephone department have two men received such an ovation. We carried them to their van at shoulder height and cheered them away.

I phoned my daughter last night to beg her to come home. "No," she said, "I like the Goldsteins. They let me speak for as long as I like on the phone."

This is so embarrassing. How can I tell people that my daughter has left home and is living with a strange phone?

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