Family finds itself lost in phones

I ventured into my teenage daughter's room the other day, but only for a second.

It was too messy, even for a dad like me.

Becca's room looked like a mini tornado had ripped through it. I felt like I had been instantly transported into the "Twilight Zone."

American teenagers seem to have a knack for throwing their clothes on the floor and leaving fast-food wrappers on their chairs and desks.

Becca's a tidy dresser. It's just her room that's a mess.

Architectural and home magazines are full of photographs of designer bedrooms. Rest assured, none of them are the bedrooms of teenagers.

I'm convinced that teenagers have a way of mentally sorting through all the clutter. It doesn't bog them down.

They know where their favorite T-shirt is stashed even if it isn't hanging up but rather thrown in a corner underneath a favorite pair of jeans.

Teenagers like Becca view cleaning up their rooms as burdensome tasks that make little sense.

After all, they have other things to do like chat on the phone with friends.

Now that Becca's approaching her 15th birthday, I hope things will change. But I doubt it.

It's also amazing how the portable telephones in our home are forever ending up stockpiled in Becca's room.

Our younger daughter, 11-year-old Bailey, also manages to walk off with the living room or kitchen phones at times.

We have four of these phones in our house. The other day I couldn't find a single one on our main floor.

I had to use my cell phone to make a call.

It's a good thing that our family has so many telephones in the house. Otherwise, we would be cut off from the world.

I guess there's something to be said for the old-fashioned black telephone, the one that was permanently wired to the wall.

As a child growing up in St. Louis County, my family had a single telephone. Its thick cord was wired into the wall. You couldn't take it anywhere.

I remember my sister, Emily, used to crawl under the living room desk in an effort to carry on her social conversations in some sort of privacy.

But at least you always could find a phone. Phones back then didn't need locator buttons.

Now you can carry them all around your house. You can find them under the couch, under a pillow and buried under the mail on the kitchen table.

I suppose that's progress. But when I'm a hunting for a telephone, it doesn't seem like progress.

"How come I can't find a single phone in this house?" I routinely lament out loud.

Joni and I on occasion have had to use the speaker button on our main phone base to answer calls because we couldn't immediately find the portable phones.

It's a desperate feeling, like trying to navigate through the jungle of an automated answering system at a business to reach a real person.

Reaching real people at some businesses is nearly impossible. In those cases, it's simply a matter of too much technology.

And no matter how many computers, cell phones and other electronic devices you have, such technology can't begin to explain the inner workings of a teenager.

If anything, they only add to the chaos.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not against technology. I'd love it if Becca's phone automatically would keep reminding her to tidy up her room.

I'd be thrilled if our phones simply would beep if our children walked off with them. That way we'd know when the phones are being held hostage and Joni and I could launch a rescue mission.

Short of that, we might have to install one of those old-fashioned pay phones.

Mark Bliss is a Southeast Missourian staff writer.