Paging Someone

There was a paging system in my house when I was a teenager.

Each room had a speaker that was connected to one of the main units, one of which was in my parents' bedroom and another that was in my father’s library. Unless the speaker had the mute button on, my parents could listen in on whatever us kids were doing in our rooms through the paging system. The main system could page all of the speakers, and my father would do this whenever he wanted, really loudly through the entire house.

Sometimes he would ramble on about something stupid, or just to let them know some random apparent fact. Instead of actually taking time to spend with his kids, he would frequently page the house and say "I love you {insert kid's name here}."

There was nothing more embarrassing than him doing that while I was on the phone or when one of my friends was over. I always hated this paging system but was always able to live with it. But there were so many times I just couldn't take it and had to leave the house any chance I could get.

Whenever my father was home for an extended period, he seemed to live on the paging system, always talking about something stupid or asking for something from me, my mother, or one of my siblings. There was nothing worse than just sitting down to relax and then hearing your father’s voice really loud throughout the entire house asking you to go get him a glass of water from the kitchen, which was only about two meters from his library.

Even worse, you knew that once you went down the glass of water wouldn't be the end of it. Follow-up work was always involved, some of which was really awful.