Three of our elementary-school grands have a new landline phone sitting in their family room. They called us multiple times the first week it was installed, each time saying, "Hello, Watson?"

No, they didn't. Each time a soft voice cautiously said, "Hello, Grandma?"

The poor things were apprehensive. A handset that rests in a base alongside a keypad is foreign to them. You might as well have given the kids a box of cassette tapes and said, "Listen to these, we think you'll like them."

Each time they called, and I identified myself as Grandma, they responded with silence followed by breathing. Little did they know that is how people used to prank one another on landlines.

They're too young to have their own cell phones, but their mom and dad wanted a way for them to dial out if needed, or for others to call in to make sure the house was still standing.

The three were "home alone" for the first time, as much as kids are ever "home alone" when Dad works from home in an office with glass-paned doors next to the family room.

Mom was out for part of the day, the kids had no school and we agreed to call and check on them.

One ring, two rings. "Hello?" a quivering voice answered.

"Hello, it's Grandma," I said. "Who's this?"

"It's me," the soft voice whispered. It was the youngest of the three.

"Great," I said. "Is everyone getting along?"

"No. I was elbowed." She then launched into a long story about how an older sister elbowed her earlier.

This is incredible because, though the child has never used a landline before, she instinctively, intrinsically, automatically knows its primary function is for tattling on a sibling.

Slam dunk for the 6-year-old.

There are other landline skills the girls are coming by naturally as well. The landline has a cord that they can stretch, twist and wind around their arms and legs and then spend half an hour untangling the cord.

The downside of their landline is that they only have one. The kids will never know the joy of an extension phone. They will never hear someone yell, "Get off the extension! Now!"

And because not many other families have landlines, they will never know the never-wracking intimidation of talking to a friend's mother or father before being able to talk to the friend.

Here's a question for all the philosophers reading: If you slam a landline down on a cell phone call, does it make a slamming sound or just a click on the cell phone?

The girls are growing at ease with the landline. The novelty is slowly wearing off. Who knows how their parents will top the landline.

They could always switch out the large flat-screen television for a small portable job with rabbit ears that you have to get up and walk over to in order to change the channel. Just a thought.

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