Crackle ... "... on final approach" crackle ... "Roger, Charlie Niner ... you're breaking up, over?"
It wasn't until yesterday while I was leaning against the hummingbird feeder post that I realized what might have been irritating my cell phone communication with the outside world. I found myself there trying to determine if the dogs were barking at anything of genuine substance. A hummingbird dove in to hover a few inches away from my hand to grab a slurp of sugar water and was immediately strafed by a far more aggressive member of his own kind. I watched the aggressor fly back to his vigil on ... MY cell phone antenna! MY, MY, MY antenna, NOT his!
The "Doh!" moment hit, a nostalgic flashback back to the TV industry's standard screen saver of the 60s for transmission difficulty ... birds sitting on an antenna! We had bought and installed this big rig antenna on the roof of the Rat to aid my cheesy default package cell phone. This phone had always been 'iffy', even with the construction of a closer cell tower up on top by Slim's ranch but the antenna had worked well in the winter months. By late Spring, I could count on conducting undecipherable conversations on a regular basis. It didn't make any sense. Not until today.
Apparently the sensitivity and signal loss of this antenna is such that, when we asked about buying coaxial to extend its reach further back into the Rat, the answer was a resounding "No, can't do it!" Accordingly, I spent any subsequent cell time tethered to the antenna at the desk in the front of the Rat. Lately, even that wasn't enough to stop the break-up of signal. Doh! This had corresponded with the return of the hummingbirds! Thankfully, this revelation does not make me feel any more compelled to absorb mindless girly chatter about bimbos whom I have never met while my buttocks, arms and mind fall asleep, a torture visited upon me by previous female acquaintances. For future calls of genuine importance, however, I now know that I can run out to the porch and throw cow chips at those perching bullies when the signal breaks up.
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June: A couple of antennae decided to get married. The wedding was so-so but the reception was fabulous!