To the device

Her itching increased, longing for the telephone, the feeling of childish envy awakened in her spirit when a friend praised the advantages of owning it.

-In half an hour this morning, without having to go out, I resolved several issues that would have required many hours, many waits in the offices, many walks and many pesetas paid to taxi drivers. Any acquaintance would tell him, without knowing that his consideration increased the desire to possess the device.

And when a commercial advertisement came to him by mail informing him that he only had to dial the seven magic numbers of a subscriber so that the articles it advertised would be delivered to his home, it seemed like a bloody mockery.

But he couldn’t fight fate. I had requested it for many months; He had made countless efforts to achieve it; He had asked for the support of influential people, and some had assured him that Telefónica was eager to install the service, and that it would do so immediately as soon as it had a free wire available.

Finally the happy moment arrived. Some workers showed up at his house with all the necessary supplies, and he and his family were able to continue in turn, with both satisfaction and impatience, their interesting manipulations, until they were able to witness how the employees talked with the Headquarters:

-Does the call sound good?

-Do you hear me well? And finally: the Sesame opens that announced to them:

-You can now communicate whenever you want.

His joy led him to go out with the installers to the door to show them his gratitude; but wanting to get back to the device to use the phone for the first time. But the inauguration of the service was not reserved for him. When he reached the foot of the device, he found his eldest daughter being inaugurated. He made a gesture of annoyance and headed to his office.

Mr. López had six daughters, six daughters! We accompany Mr. López in the deep and presumed disappointment of his paternal spirit.

After a few minutes, he went back to the phone to vice-inaugurate the service. As he approached, he heard that they were still talking using him, but he saw with surprise and disgust that it was no longer his first-born daughter speaking, but rather his second daughter, and that his third daughter was smilingly waiting for her to finish to take her place.

Mr. López, grumpy and impatient, addressed the two to send them:

-You finish soon. And you will wait for me to speak before taking possession of the receiver. I have the right, right? Well let me know. And he returned to his office.

He had barely sat down when he appeared at the door of the third of his successors to inform her:

-The phone is now free.

Mr. López left the office hastily. At last! But he didn’t count on the guest. This was the fourth of his daughters that he communicated.

-Again!, he exclaimed. I don’t want to have any more tantrums. Are your two sisters around?

-Waiting for Leonor to finish.

-Well, let them come and form a line, and let them speak one after the other when Leonor finishes. Then I will speak, and thus the divine promise will be fulfilled: the last will be the first. And he returned to his office.

When he believed that his daughters had satisfied their desire to have telephone conversations, he went out into the hallway again and saw that his wife was on the phone.

-Won’t any of the girls also want to use the telephone? he asked with furious irony.

-You’re right; sorry. I was looking forward to telling my sister Felipa our number. I finish right away.

-Well, let me know when you’re done so that, finally, it’s my turn. We started badly. Let’s see if I have to regret having requested the phone.

Shortly after, Doña Clotilde appeared in the office to inform her husband:

-You already have your phone free.

And Mr. López came out again to try to use him. He picked up the receiver and started to dial a number; but a voice resounded in the device that asked:

-Lopez’s ladies? And, without answering, he returned the receiver to its place ‘grumpily’.

He was not able to telephone until after dinner.

Mr. López had six daughters, as mentioned. The six already linked to six prospective sons-in-law. They had used the telephone to call them, in turns as violently discussed as the one they keep, on Sundays in front of the cinema box office. Mr. López’s future sons-in-law were not at home, and his absence gave rise to six calls from him when they returned to their homes and gave them, written in notes, the magic number, “Sesame, open up,” which would allow them to contact each other. verbal relationship with the protagonists of their love relationships. That’s why the line was busy for long hours, to squeeze Mr. López’s patience to the point of exhaustion.

The following noon it was already possible for the head of the family to have the following dialogue with his daughters at lunch time:

Mr. López ruled:

-As the telephone is a necessity and almost a requirement for each and every one of those present, we must subject the use of such a useful invention to schedule conditions, so that we do not hinder each other. I have to be the first, not only because of my character as a father and husband, but above all, because my conferences are, sometimes, unavoidable and always important. Next comes the mother, not only because of her status and the respect you owe her, who asks for it, but because the needs of the house sometimes require urgent availability of the device. Finally, there are you, with six possible future husbands on the sidelines, for whom the telephone line can be a chain of permanence and slavery. I recognize your right to communicate with your beaus to facilitate the necessary consolidation of your love relationships. It is only necessary to distribute the hours so that we do not coincide with each other. Your mother and I have to use the phone freely all day. You divide the night hours to hold your conversations.

-Dad: Guillermo doesn’t have a phone at home, and he can only call me from the office. You can’t do it at night.

-Let him call from a bar.

-Dad: Fernando…

-I have said my last word. Resolving difficulties is up to you.

Despite Mr. López having said his last word, he was unable to say any on the phone during the following days. Once it was an urgent errand; another was a question that in the previous communication had been left hanging in the thread and was now circulating through it…; another later era…

Mr. López eventually became convinced that he was still as isolated from the world as before the telephone had been installed. Another item: that before he lived in peace, and now he was in perpetual war with his daughters, without possible peace.

And he made a heroic decision: he ordered a carpenter to create a wooden box with its key that would make the use of the device impossible. He even enjoyed thinking vengefully about his daughters’ tantrums when the doorbell rang, like a captive asking for help from his confinement, without anyone attending to him. He then suffered an unexpected martyrdom. He constantly had to go to the phone; take the key out of your pocket; open the niche in which he had buried him, and hear a voice that asked in the receiver: Miss Leonor?; or Miss Marta? or… In any case, it was preferable to spend the day listening to calls, which he never answered, than to never be able to make them.

Two days passed like this. The third, very distressed, asked his wife to give him the key to the niche. The oil had run out and I had to call the store to urgently send two or three liters.

Mr. López searched and searched in his jacket, vest and pants, to no avail.

Finally, he confessed desolately:

-When I took something out of my pocket I lost the key!