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~ Geoff Stamper

November 28, 2024, will be busy because the day I brush my teeth and the day I answer the phone fall on the same day this month. Remember, do not leave messages on our landline which is reserved for spammers. My wife Mollie and I keep that line only to dial our cell phones when they are lost. Then we split up and race around the house and garage in a desperate attempt to locate them before the ringing stops.

We invited our grandchildren to join the phone hunt rituals because we have a difficult time hearing ringtones. Now we suspect Sebastian and Zofia are hiding the phones because even Mollie would not accidentally use a ladder to leave hers behind the old phone books stored on a seven foot high bookshelf. [Old phone books are valuable collectibles that will allow us to leave an inheritance for our children.] The grandchildren will be forgiven only if the search videos they are posting online earn big bucks.

This post was excerpted from my annual Holiday Newsletter (2024) which is not plagiarism because I am the source. And Newsletter writings are protected by the Supreme Court ruling in Day v. Crockett which upheld the presumption that competent persons know better than to believe or rely on statements in political campaigns, timeshare agreements, or Geoff Stamper’s postings. I am so busy that readers are invited to pick a title for this post. The winner gets no reward, only the embarrassment of being recognized as a contributor to this Blog.

58 thoughts on “Submit Title”

  5. I came up with three different title suggestions, the obvious one being ‘Phone Hunt’ and I thought that ‘Prequel to My Holiday Newsletter’ would work and ‘Geoff Stamper’s Thanksgiving Posting’s’ is also very applicable. I am guessing that “answer the phone fall” probably means that you pick up your phone in autumn.

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  6. My submission is, “Exceptional Excerpts.” Your mention of collectible phone books reminded me of the time I asked my daughter to hand me a phone book. She laughed and said, “Daddy, you’re so old-fashioned, here.” And she handed me her brand new iPhone. Now the spider got away, there’s glass all over the counter and my daughter isn’t speaking to me.

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    1. You are absolutely right. Three years ago, our grandson broke his hip running down the same stairs but he was going at breakhip speed. His mother would be appalled at the behavior we are modeling. He is forbidden to run on the stairs, so at least we are teaching him about hypocrisy. But Mollie and I are just so damn competitive, even though we cannot brag about winning this phone finding competition without bringing shame on both of us.

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  10. Playing Slapjack with Strawberry Hats and Pearls
    Or
    Never Roll a Joint with the Yellow Pages
    Or
    Look Under the Box of TrustaFart
    Or
    Crying on the Shores of Time (add the ‘poetry’ tag and you’ll get at least 200 visits and no likes)

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  11. How I Got My Start as a Holiday Spammer

    How to Locate Your Cell Phone and Get a Workout Simultaneously

    How to Avoid Crappy Thanksgiving Football Games

    “Does my medical insurance cover me breaking my ankle when racing to get to the phone before it quits ringing?”

    “Only if it is from a desperate caller from Nigeria.”

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  12. If I was your land line I would go on strike.

    ‘You only talk to me when you want something, what happened to those nice long chats we used to have? Well, I am not going to call your mobile any more, I shall phone your neighbours instead, that’ll confuse you.’

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    1. The land line has been on a wildcat strike lately. It seems like rechargeable batteries only work for a couple decades and replacing them with regular batteries just causes constant beeping. We needed to invest in lifetime warranties for our appliances, clothes, body parts…

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  13. I was grateful to Word Press when they added AI which was eager to suggest improvements to my titles; but you have discovered an even better way to avoid the difficulty of thinking of a suitable title. Brilliant!

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  16. I believe that entitlement is not something we should seek, so your blog post’s lack of entitlement is a good thing. If you must have a title, you (as an old lawyer) should go with Fee Simple.

    The phone-find struggle is real. But I win all the phone-find races because Marianne can’t hear out of one ear and can’t tell where the ringing is coming from.

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  18. I miss having a landline to use to locate my cell phone and to talk to people who thought they were calling a tow truck company. Happened all the time, especially in the middle of the night. Guess I don’t miss that!

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    1. Yes, we received regular calls for Oscar for well over a decade. Many of the callers spoke in a language other than English. His number may have been on an outdated list. We did not try to get more information on the off chance that Oscar was involved in something illegal.

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