Grandpa’s Tips To Other Grandparents On How To Get Your Family’s Attention
By learning how to use a cell phone.
1. Always pick up the phone. Any phone
It doesn’t matter whose phone rings…when you hear a sound, pick it up. Screams of privacy, grimaces, sulks — pretend not to see them. Pick up when your son’s boss rings him, bang on the bathroom door where your son’s presently mid-dump, and yell loudly, “Son! Your boss wants to know why you aren’t at work yet. Should I tell him you’re in the john?” Chitchat with your DIL’s mother, whom she hates, nod furiously and make grunting “I understand” sounds, and then say, “Hold on, Kathy. Your daughter is here.” Then say loudly to your DIL without using the hold option, “Don’t avoid your mother. She gave birth to you.”
This is how you build close relationships with your family.
2. But never ever pick up when it’s YOUR phone that’s ringing
Allow your phone to ring for at least five minutes so that everyone in the house stop what they’re doing and stare at you. Don’t get cowed down by their angry looks. You WIN because they’re paying attention to you. When they bring your phone to you ask innocently, “Oh, was my phone ringing? I can barely hear anything these days.”
3. Keep your family on their toes. Just when they relax and think of you as the furniture, jerk them back
Make sure you force the Samsung power chord into grandma’s LG phone and spoil it just enough that your family tries to ‘fix’ it for you. Hide your son’s iPhone charger. And then watch as he’s about to go to work, finds that the juice on his phone is down to 10%, has a meeting with his boss in the car, panics because he can’t find his charger, looks accusingly at his wife and his children, then looks at you and rolls his eyes as the two of you share that ‘women and children be cray cray’ look. You cannot pay for this kind of bonding experience.
4. Always interrupt your grandchildren when they’re on their phones
Kids need boundaries. And it’s YOUR job to teach them. When they spend too much time on their cell phones and not with you, interrupt them with inane questions and/or complain. “I just learned to swipe right when the phone rang but now I have to swipe up? Why?” “What does rebooting mean?” And then pretend to listen to them. This is key. They HAVE to understand that you may be eighty-two but you’re not a quitter. They probably want to push you down the stairs but focus on the positive: at least they’re holding your hands.
5. When you see their attention wavering buckle down and take refuge in the Three Ps: posturing, philosophizing and pontificating.
Pontificate on how tough life was back in the day with land phones. Philosophize by butting in when they’re trying to explain what a selfie means for the fiftieth time with, “This is just like how it was when we got a dial phone and your great grandpa’s fingers were too big to dial and he complained incessantly.” Fold your hands seriously and posture on that mythical time when there was no Internet and how travel agencies called airlines and booked tickets on the land phone and watch them look at you in awe. THIS is what WE live for.
6. Sacrifice your kid to curry favor with the grandkids
Remember this if you don’t remember anything else. When the grandkids stop listening to your general throwbacks with bated breath, quickly switch gears and throw your child under the bus. Describe how their MIT-educated computer science engineer father cried when his brand-new computer did not work and threw tantrums only to find he had forgotten to plug in the power cord. And watch as your grandkids rub their hands in glee. Naming and shaming your own child to win the affection of your grandchildren is the best currency in the world.
7. Keep them on their toes. If they try to act over smart reign the suckers in.
Shake your head and constantly, interrupt and say “I get it” and describe how back in the day you were the first person in your village who owned a phone and a computer. Sure, you laid down the hard drive of your desktop computer horizontally on the floor and used it as a coffee table but they don’t need to know that. Bring it home by segueing seamlessly to how modern life sucks and how “back in the day you did just fine without any cell phones or the Internet” for the 400th time that week.
8. Share your technological skills
Teach grandma how to press the red key on her phone to start talking and the green key to stop talking. When she keeps pressing the red key to answer her sister’s phone calls and the line gets disconnected and she looks confused, yell and scream about how “women just don’t get technology.”
