With all the technology that we have available to us we begin to rely on technology more and more. We store our addresses, both street and email in our email address book. We store our telephone numbers in our cell phones and speed dial of our home phones. When we need a telephone number it seems so much easier to pay the price and call directory assistance. I have found that it is not always the best to rely solely on technology for important emergency numbers.
Several months ago my mother was taken to the hospital dying. I live the closest to her so I was called by the assisted living facility that she lived in. They told me that the nursing assistant had found my mom lying on the floor. She appeared to be in a coma. I grabbed my cell phone and purse and headed out the door. When I arrived at the hospital I was told that family members should be contacted immediately because the end was near. I went to turn on my cell phone to call my sisters and realized that the battery was dead. The phone would not even turn on. The nurse told me that there was a phone I could use in the family lounge, however all the phone numbers I needed were stored in my phone. I know my sister’s home telephone numbers, however this was during the day so they were at work. I had not bothered to memorize their work numbers because they were stored in the phone.
I called my husband at work and asked him to stop at home and get the leather address books that were in the desk. I then started looking up numbers in the telephone book. It was a hassle having to go through receptionists to locate my sisters because I did not have direct telephone numbers. I hated wasting the time when I needed to be with my mom. Once I located one sister I had her call the others so I could get back to mom’s bedside.
My husband arrived carrying two leather address books. One was tattered and torn from years of use, the other was new. He asked me why I needed two leather address books. I explained that I was in the process of copying one into the other. I had added my sister’s work number’s into the new book, but I had not copied all of my sister’s into the book yet. I wanted to make sure I had all the numbers I needed so I had asked him to bring both leather address books. The new book is great because it opens like a three ring binder so you can add and take out pages as people’s information changes. This episode taught me not to rely on my cell phone for numbers.
Tags: address book, email address book, leather address books
