Carol’s Column

Say a swift Howzit! on your teledivellicater

McGuiresville in Arizona, USA, is a village so small that indeed, most people have never heard of it.

Henry Jay Gerkin, one of the finest computer brains in the world, hails from McGuiresville, and it was in that sleepy one-mule dorp that the brilliant Gerkin invented the teledivellicater — an ingenious device that terminates telethon calls after exactly 299 seconds.

I thought of Mr Gerkin as I looked at my life savings disappearing down the line into the digestive cavity of the Department of Post and Telecommunications.

“Do you realise,” I said to my teenage daughter, “that you have been speaking to Mandy for a leg of lamb and a pair of French knickers with Chantilly lace that I was going to buy for Betty’s birthday?”

“Ma, you’re mad,” replied my daughter. “How can anyone talk for a leg of lamb and a pair of French knickers? It is just not possible.”

“Nicky, at 13,5 c for every five minutes, if you talk for an hour that is R1,62. Now, you have been talking for three and a half hours which works out at R5,70. The French knickers with Chantilly lace are on a special for R2,99 and the leg of lamb is a loss leader at Mintsky’s Meats.”

“Ma, that’s only R5,59,” observed my daughter.

It is at times like this that I know I should have heeded my grandmother’s advice and become the first Jewish nun in history.

“Ma,” she continued clutching the phone until her knuckles whitened, “this is my life-line, my oxygen, without it, I can’t breathe.”

“Fine, so breathe for five minutes at a time,” I muttered.

There’s no doubt, the new metered local-call tariffs herald the end of a glorious era. No more lengthy chats to my good friend Betty as we merrily sip gin and orange juice and discuss bunion operations. Conversations are brief, terse and functional.

“Hello.”

“Howzit?”

“Fine, and you?”

“Fine. Bye.”

“Bye.”

Well, that’s the theory. The practice is different. A temporarily rigged logging system revealed that over a four-day period, this family’s talking time was 98,07 hours. At this rate we’d soon be bankrupt.

“So what about a teledivellicater?” said my spouse anxiously.

“They’re not yet available in South Africa,” I replied.

“Well, this is an emergency. Phone Henry Jay Gerkin and order one direct,” he said.

It took the operator three days to find a Gerkin in McGuiresville, USA, but finally we struck it lucky. Unfortunately, Henry Jay was holidaying in Cuba, said his mother, Mrs Winsome Wendy Gerkin. Anyway, because of the unpredictable success of the teledivellicater, Henry was out of stock.

“Okay,” said my husband, “one has to be philosophical. We’ll compromise. I’ll give it some thought.”

Only yesterday I returned home exhausted after a three-hour session at the cellulite removal clinic. “I’m wonderful,” said my husband modestly. “I’ve designed a brilliantly ingenious phone-call terminator. It works on the principle that if the receiver is not replaced after five minutes’ conversation, it blows the connection. Rather like a hand-grenade,” he added.

Beside the phone was an extraordinary device resembling an egg-timer attached to a pineapple.

I adjusted my contact lenses and peered closely. It was an egg-timer attached to a pineapple.

“You might think that’s an egg-timer attached to a pineapple,” said my financial asset. “Actually, it’s a hand-grenade and a timing device.”

I nodded, speechless.

It was Nicky who summed things up while chatting to Mandy. “My father’s finally flipped,” I heard her say. “He insists that every time we speak we time a pineapple for five minutes, then put the phone down. Hey, my five minutes are up, bye.”

“So why did you stop talking?” I asked.

“Fathers have to be humoured,” she said. “Besides, none of my friends has fathers who time pineapples. It’s far out.”

Happiness is a home-made teledivellicater. Eat your heart out, Henry Jay Gerkin.

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