Call 911, or just shout out the door!

We have only one phone connected downstairs, a cordless phone hanging in the kitchen near our entryway. We used to have one in another room on the desk, but Lucas became a bit too curious; we were increasingly concerned we would either awaken a West Coast relative early in the morning or discover the police, fire and rescue squads of our fine city on our door step. I don't know about your household, but ours has horrible luck with cordless phones. Either the batteries fail to hold a charge or the keypad loses its sensitivity and the number buttons stick or fail to connect at all. If you want a call back and your phone number no longer appears in our "received calls" list, you're unlikely to hear from us! If we can't press a simple "redial," we're screwed. A couple of weeks ago I was at my sister's house and discovered her cordless phone is in a similar state. After a ten minute effort to dial Matt's cell phone number, I was ready to give up. We realized, anxiety-prone though we are, neither of us had considered a plan to call 9-1-1 if the number 9 was having a particularly sticky day or the number 1 was temporarily out of service. Honestly, what is the point of teaching Kyra how to dial the number if a shout out the window is more likely to ensure success? If you see our door open and hear cries for help, call 9-1-1 on our behalf--and please, by all means, don't dial from your cordless phone!