See, we used to have a landline but it never worked right.  Right after I moved into this house, I started hearing people on the line talking in Portuguese.  They couldn’t hear me but I could hear them.  I couldn’t enjoy eavesdropping when I couldn’t understand them.  And most of my phone conversations turned into "Do you hear those other people talking?"  Also, when you called me, I couldn’t hear anything when I picked up.  So, after six visits from the SBC phone people with no resolution, we disconnected the landline.  We’ll be like twentysomethings, all keeping it simple, I thought.  We’ll save money.  It’s worked, mostly, except for days like today.

We got in from NY last night and after watching the bags go around for an HOUR, my husband’s showed up but mine did not.  I cried.  Airline is ATA, by the way: American Trans Air.  Lost bags, lost luggage, ATA, delays on both ends, bad service, ATA.  Just so we’re clear and can be googled on all that. 

We came home, exhausted, went out and bought me toothbrush and other stuff, I realized that life would go on.  In addition to clothes and IVF drugs and glasses and contact case in the suitcase were my planner, and power cords to my computer and my cellphone.

Today was to be my dreaded mammogram, for which I have to have "orders" from my doctor, which live in my planner.  So I had to get up, use the almost-out-of-juice cell phone to get new orders faxed from my doc to the mammogram people before my 11 a.m. appointment.  Meanwhile the people from ATA had found my bag and were having it delivered to me, sometime before 1.  We live in a fortress-like condo building with a buzzer at the front door that is connected to, yes, my cellphone since we don’t have a land line.  Which means that instead of accompanying me to the dreaded mammo, my husband had to stay home, with my phone, so that we could take delivery of my suitcase.

I missed my monitoring appointment at the clinic, by the way; but will make it up tomorrow.  My lining is never an issue so this appointment is a big yawn for everyone.  I had already missed two estrace tablets so just stuck an extra Viv.elle patch on and hoped it would all even out. 

And don’t be that person who tells me "That’s why I NEVER check…" because in addition to packing for a wide temperature range – on Wednesday in NYC it was about 12 degrees and on Saturday it was 58 – I have a vial of Lupron and hypodermic needles.  Getting the Lupron through security is easy but I wasn’t about to have the TSA wave the needles about.  I have an ex-boyfriend who works for TSA at one of our airports, by the way, so you can bet it would be him when the needle-waving time came.  I’m sure it can be done, but it seemed too hard in the fog of my hormonal depression.

So my husband was ready to wait for the suitcase but the phone was out of juice and no charger.  The phone is the only way the suitcase delivery man can ring us.  So I decided to charge the phone in the car with the motor running, and used my keys to lock the car so I could leave it for a few minutes.  We love our new car with the keyless lock thingie.  It didn’t work when I wanted to leave it running, so I had to do it manually using the door buttons.  I locked the car that way, left the phone charging for ten minutes and then went out to get it, and couldn’t unlock the doors.  The keyless doesn’t work with the car running, I guess the car assumes if the car is running, we are in it, and it won’t unlock for anything.

I had to get to the mammo appointment even though I would have given anything to cancel.  Last year at this time, just like now, I had a mammogram scheduled right before starting a cycle.  Last year they saw something suspicious and I had to postpone my cycle while I waited for biopsy appointment and waited for results.  It was a sucky January ending in a happy, benign result.  And so my mammograms are long, drawn-out affairs with many returns for pictures.  I’m glad it all happens in one visit but last time it took three hours.  So I would have loved to miss the appointment (and the drama), but the idea of Something Bad cooking in there while I am marinating in estrogen is too scary.

So I was going to have to taxi to the mammogram and back home, while my husband got the tow guy to come and Slim Jim the damn thing open, meanwhile somehow staying available for the suitcase to get delivered.  It would have been more expensive than any of our days in NYC and a lot less fun.  Finally my husband got the bright, 21st century idea to try the KEY to unlock the car, and it worked.  Duh.

If we had a landline most of this wouldn’t have been a big deal.  I can’t wait to get a land line at our next house (with no Portuguese people).  I miss it – in the old days when friends called they sometimes got your spouse on the line accidentally and everybody got to know each other a little bit.  Or you could come home and say "did anybody call?"  And, of course, you could actually complete a call without losing signal (unless you had the Portugese Problem).  Now my husband and I maintain strictly separate communications. 

I never have to worry that he’s having an affair, though, because he keeps his phone turned up SO HIGH that I can hear every word anyone says on the other end, no matter where I am; and unfortunately he’s a very bad Cell Yeller so I hear his end really well too.   Just the thought of him hollering "I CAN’T GET AWAY RIGHT NOW" into his phone, while he has his face pressed against the window to try and improve our lousy reception, makes the whole idea pretty silly.  And he won’t learn to text because that’s just one more thing he’d have to dig out his reading glasses for. 

Anyway, I’m home.  The suitcase came.  The Breast Police got me out of mammogram hell in under two hours, with not even enough scary re-takes to make them re-think the whole "no deodorant" rule. 

My suitcase is here, my phone is charging, my boobs are going to let me live another year, and ripping those little stickers off my nipples only made me cry a little bit.

Life is good.