Talk is cheap

 The cost of living crisis is kicking butt in Paradise as it is no doubt in your neck of the woods.

I make an assumption, of course, about who you are, where you are NOT - and indeed through what period of time you are reading this.

Although it would be very weird if you were here from the past.

I digress.

(Then remember that the mythical Yous are only figments of my imagination and I am calmed)

What I was starting to say?

 As I was saying before I so rudely interrupted, the cost of living crisis is kicking butt in Paradise.  Sure there's all the rest of the world $#!+= but also the more localised dollar dramas of the medical costs of becoming crocks in our fifties and the ageing affect of busying myself in genealogy.

But then I am reminded of a time when V and I scoured mobile deals to enact daily communication at a distance and I remember (a) to what lengths we took to make that contact, (b) how truly exciting we were to spend that time together, (c) how exorbitantly expensive it was if we missed a term or condition and (d) how, these days I will lay upon the couch in one room and fall sound asleep for a 40 minute snooze while purporting to watch 20 year old television shows with the teenager and he will be only a wall away.

Costs nothing.

And he can now talk to his Mum, face to face, for free as often as both - or either - feels the need.

I talk to my Mum and Dad every morning - they can see my face and hear my voice.

For free.

I even took my sister shopping with me today. Well, I tried. She needed to mow.  There are seasons when needing to mow is both a hallelujah and a groan,  which is better than an air of resignation and a sigh.

My Mum used to save her 50c pieces to pay for her weekly phone calls to her mother so her husband and her mother-in-law would not have any ammunition in snide commentary about the expense of a city girl. Which was apparently not just accepted, but expected behaviour towards a city girl in certain parts of the country. Consider it a term of endearment.

Her mother's mother-in-law would get an annual card from her son - her OTHER son, the one who moved all the way to the other side of the country - and she revelled in the receipt of that card and then looked forward to the next happy occasion for the next 10. All the while the family that she could talk to for free felt the loving hand of gentle criticism.

My daughters and I chat on messenger. From the next room. Or in a break at work. Sometimes.

We used to get up to 3 stamps at school per week, and one of those letters was to be to our parents.

I was a shocking correspondent. Believe me when I say that online communication has certainly improved my legibility. Even I can't read my writing sometimes.

We were allowed to call our parents - reverse charge - from the school payphone.

Dial 0-1-7-6 - speak to an Operator - "can I please place a reverse charge phone call to" and then spell our number - and after going through two telephone exchanges - barring "the line is busy" or "no answer" - you would hear her ask "will you please accept a reverse charge phone call from" and you would always hope that they would say yes.

Sometimes the boys school would get a phone call through to this phone, and there would be much drama in the relay of who's friend fancied who's friend and who wanted to go out with who and - as was the case the one time someone came to get me to join the conversation - what torrid affair d'Year 8 would come to a shuddering halt when someone dropped someone else (sometimes via an intermediary, as this chancer had hoped to happen - unfortunately a mortified me got to hear this missive in front of a phalanx of popular girls). 

I am over it now.