MONDAY DIARY: ALMOST EXCRUSIATINGLY TRUE STORIES - OR AT LEAST HOW THEY FEEL

Fr. P. has a Magic Phone.  It does everything.  The other day we got lost (well, I got us lost along with our visiting seminarian Joseph) and Magic Phone saved the day.  Fr. P looked up the person we were looking for in the White Pages and then plugged that address into the GPS ap (is that how you spell ap?) and got us right there.  This is amazing to me.  The other day I asked him to take a picture for me and he said, "I don't have my phone on me."  10 years ago if you had said that in reply people would have thought you adleminded.  Now phones do everything.

I have a magic phone too.  It is my office phone.  It does one thing - phone calls.  Nothing else.  It doesn't tell me the constellations in the sky, it doesn't tell me the nearest great restaurant, it just makes calls.  *BUT* it only allows calls through when I am not in my office.   That's what makes it truly magic.

One of my big surprises in ministry is the amount of paperwork we have to do from time to time.  It keeps me in my office for a goodly amount of time.  But the phone never, ever rings when I am in there. 

Of course, every once in a while one must step away from their desk.  It happens.

But I swear in the that 5 minutes that I am out of the office the phone can sense it and it wishes to punish me for abandoning it.

Not that there is anything wrong with this.  But it would be nicer to answer the phone and handle the matter right away rather than listening to the messages, writing down notes, and then going through the process of calling people back BECAUSE THEY won't be at THEIR phones.

That may not be completely truthful but it sure feels that way.  Sometimes I think there is a conspiracy.  Almost - ALMOST like I could believe that my parochial vicar has an ap that let's people know when I have walked away from the phone.  Could it be?