Next on the list of things that are going to disappear in my/your lifetime: the land-line telephone. Now that's going to be trouble for me to cope with, even to write about. My landline is my lifeline. I have encountered cellphones but I'm not handy or happy with them. I was the first person I knew to get an "amigo" way back (I returned to Toronto over ten years ago) when I lived on the shore of a Muskoka lake in one of about ten dwellings occupied year-round and I faced a 2 1/2 hour drive to Toronto on a road that was wiped out by white-outs during the winter months. I realized the hazards of walking alone with my dog or of driving alone on that highway and got a cellphone so I could call for help in case of an emergency. I never had such an emergency, BTW, and I didn't use the phone for chat. Later, in the city, I got another phone for dog-walking. But I found the keys too small for my thick fingers and I don't have the dextrous opposable thumbs that kids today have developed with all their practice on video games. I let the (devious) contract run out and got a stripped-down cell phone with big numbers. I use it when I go away somewhere to write rather than rely on a possible landline. Soon I am going to have to face a cellphone full time when I go off on another writing retreat, so it's a good thing I am considering the demise of landlines now. I guess I'm going to have to rely on a cellphone while I'm away. I don't know what to say. A phone is a phone, good for swift communication and information, but I understand certain people's need for further expression. In my day, and in my children's day, phones were for talking, a lot of talking,so much so that a children's telephone with a separate number was allotted to me and my brother and later, when I had a family, to my children. My grandchildren have permanent cellphone numbers so that they can move often, which they do, and still be on call. I guess really mobile people should have permanent numbers assigned to them. Maybe some day babies will have a number tattooed on their heels so they can be tracked for life - not unlike the GPS microchips some dogs have installed by their watchful owners. Area codes would be tricky in the case of a world traveller- I mean how much space is there on a heel for a world number? But those are cellphone problems. What about the landline? I guess I've just skirted the problem. If you move around a lot, a landline is not for you. See, I'm not only sedentary, I'm stationary, so I'm easy. I'm as close as your telephone.