Hello?

I've had some pretty good Christmas presents in the past. Many I have to this day. Lady Di gave my a leather jacket on our first Christmas together and I still wear it. Same goes for a watch she gave me that year too. It has gone through five watch bands but it still keeps ticking.

This year I got something I have never received before, a cellphone. I've been trying to avoid carrying a cellphone for many years, but now I have one. I'm not the most technologically gifted person. I can run a TV remote pretty well, but hand me a blackberry and I will try to spread it on toast.

I guess I'm just leery of paying a lot of money for the latest gadget, only to have it go obsolete and end up on a Goodwill shelf in 6 months. I just want to make sure that a new technology is really going to catch on. I can remember when Beta was dueling with VHS. Now, DVD-HD is battling Blu-Ray. I don't even know what those things are!

Since I've had my cell phone for a week, I've been able to program different ring tones to each of the four speed dial numbers I call. It's sad when I can't even fill up a favorite five list of numbers. I can see me using my phone for emergencies and that's about it. I'll probably pretend to use it while walking around town just to look cool.

Now Number One Son seems to be having some trouble with one of his Christmas presents. I had previously posted that N1S received a new robe for Christmas. He loves to wear his robe and raise a snow globe over his head and pretend he is a powerful wizard. Since this is N1S's first robe, we had to tell him how to use it. It has ties on the inside to close the robe if you just want to wear it with underwear. He just stared blankly at that. The outside belt can be tied to keep it together if you are wearing pj's. He insists on tying both sets of straps. He then runs into trouble when he has to race to the bathroom, fumbling with both knots and actually pulling them tighter as he is racing the clock.

Last night, he was having trouble sleeping. I could hear him upstairs going from his room to the bathroom a few times. Once I heard him let out a frightened yelp. I asked him what happened?

He said he scared himself in the dark. Apparently, just before turning on the bathroom light, he saw something move out of the corner of his eye. He said it looked like a tail of an animal.

"But it was just my robe belt.", he casually admitted.

Then he complained about not being able to sleep. "Well", I offered, "It might help if you took your robe off before getting into bed."

"Oh yeah, that's a good idea." "Thanks, Dad."

I'm sure even Hugh Hefner has trouble with his robe once in a while.