Ellie and the phone

This is what happened several years ago. When my MIL was a drunk, but (supposedly) not senile or demented (not demented, oh thats RICH). When she still had a car, and a JOB as well. When she had a membership to her beloved yacht club (reminder dear reader, she has never owned so much as a dinghy). This was even before her boyfriend drove into the lake! She had a social life.
So she had had a cell phone, but lost it. Again. And now her wall phone was cracked. My husband, sweet optomistic soul that he is, thought a cordless phone was the *perfect* Christmas gift. This was the first in a STRING of gifts-that-make-me-shudder. I want you to listen to the cordless phone tale and then you tell me if it was Good Idea or a Bad Idea to follow it with these gifts at subsequent holidays: a dvd player, a computer, a stereo, a new tv, another phone, a laptop, a cell phone. I'm just saying, if *I* were buying gifts for her I'd stick with fuzzy slippers. But not my Chris, oh no, he IS optimism.
Alrighty then. We (Chris) bought Ellie a cordless phone. A good one, with the built in digital answering machine base. With remote access! Just go to any other phone, call your house, enter the NASA approved 17 digit code, and voila! hear your messages. Easy Peasy right? Chris showed her how. He wrote out instructions. He made 6 copies. He taped them to the table the base rests on, the fridge, put them in her purse, her coat pocket and wherever else.
And he returned to his life. MY life is lived, well, in my living room. Which means all the crazy people know *just* where to find me.
So my phone rang, and my caller ID registered "pay phone" as the caller. I answered it- hey, we all make mistakes. It was Ellie. Calling from outside her work. And the conversation went like this:
me: hello
E: oh uh yes uh hello is my son at home?
me: no, he's at work. are you ok?
E: oh oh I'm fine yes but uh my phone is n. o. t. w. o. r. king
(I interrupt this to remind you Ellie has a hand-held voice box and randomly switches from speaking words to spelling them, sometimes only half of the word)
me: ok, I'll tell Chris when he gets home and he can come over and check it out
E: well I'm not at home. I'm at work.
me: right, but your phone is at home so he'll come over after work-
E: no. it is not at h.o.m.e.i.t.i.s. right here
me: oh um are you returning it then?
E. NO. I'm trying to USE it. I brought it to work but I can't call you. There's no dial tone. I can't get my messa g.e.s. either
me: um, right, well, its not a cell phone you know, so uh, it won't work 20 miles from home. but you can get your messages from there
E: I know. Its a CORDLESS phone, theres no cord. I don't need a cord. But I want to get my messages and I can't get a dial tone.
me: right well, um try calling from the payphone to get your messages and I'll send Chris over later...
E: (sighs like I am dumber than a box of rocks) I need to c.a.l.l.m.y.p.h.o.n.e.
me: (decides if she thinks I'm dumb I might as well ACT like it) oh gosh your phone must be broken. Gee I wonder whats wrong with it. I hope Chris can figure it out for you. That sounds so frustrating. I wonder if its broken.

and we wind up and she hangs up and that should be that.

But then, 30 minutes later, she's AT MY HOUSE. With her phone. Her not-a-cell cordless phone. She's SO mad.
"See? SEE? no dial tone! Nothing!" she shouts at me (um well she doesn't really shout you know. Her little voice box thingy doesn't have a "shout" setting. So it all sounds the same- but she quakes with rage so you can imagine the volume increase)
She proceeds to explain to me, and show me, over and over and over again how her (cordless) phone won't work (from a mile away from its base) to call her answering machine (the same phone she is TRYING TO USE) to get her messages

I don't know where to start. Do I start with the difference between "cordless" and "cell"? With the logistics of using your own phone to call your own phone and how you'll just get a busy signal?

I spend 20 minutes on cordless vs cell and the end result is that is TOTALLY freaked out that her brilliant and perfect son could marry such a dullard.

Chris explained and explained. But every week or 2 we had to start over. After a few months Chris told her the phone was broken and he was going to get her a new one. He said that model was out of stock. And all they had was this one. This answering machine with a "play" button and no remote access. This wall-mounted phone seperate from the answering machine.