Doodling on hold

Today marked a momentous occasion for my family: I disconnected the land line, making us an all-mobile family.

It just seemed the right thing to do. Why spend $40 a month for a phone line that when it rings, we just look at it and don't answer?

But to give credit where credit is due, AT&T gave us years and years of adequate service, and I will miss our number. The only complaint I have with them is that they made it just too darn hard to disconnect.

Hard to find information about HOW to disconnect; hard to find a number to call TO disconnect; and when I finally found the number and called, I was put on hold for what seemed like forever.

(Can't really blame them, but it was still annoying.)

Let me try to illustrate how long I was actually on hold:

Whenever I'm put on hold, if a piece of scrap paper and pencil are anywhere near, I like to doodle. I draw houses, cars, airplanes, anything that comes to mind. Mostly houses.

I was on hold for so long, I drew a house with yard, fence, trees, smoke coming out of the chimney, a swing set, dog house, a German Shepherd, two-car garage, driveway, basketball goal, the neighbor's oak tree limb hanging over into our yard, Nick France the septic guy cleaning out our system, and a tool shed.

And then I started drawing the tools.

A Husky 8 in. Double Speed Adjustable Wrench; a Stanley 10 in. Fine-Finish Mini Utility Saw; a 6-piece Iron Bridge Tools Precision Screwdriver set; a Rockforge 10 lb Sledgehammer with Fiberglass Handle; and a Ryobi Tek4 Professional 4-Volt Infrared Thermometer.

I have no idea why I would ever need a Ryobi Tek4 Professional 4-Volt Infrared Thermometer, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

Finally, Sales Rep. Jennifer answered the call, said she hated to see us leave, but wished our family well and, "Remember, don't text and drive."

And that's it.

Our land line is dead.

Anybody that knew our number will never be able to call us on it again.

But I can live with that because in exchange, I have doodled a list of tools that I'll now be able to buy with my land-line savings.

Seems like a fair trade.