Trimline Meetings

(For those of you not familiar with the Trimline phone you may want to Google it, as it was iconic in its day. Hardwired, the keypad was in the receiver, it was state of the art.)

“We’re all here in the office and wanted your take on our case,” he said.

(Long pause…….)

“Oh Sure……can you hang on just a second please?” I asked.

Yikes! Did they really have to have a case update today….now…in the midst of all this? Of course they did, and for the money I was making I needed to pull this off.

It was spring 1994, and Joe and I were living the dream — we were ranching and raising a family in Meeker. This, however, required additional non-ranch income to pay the bills. Joe's contribution was bartending by night and selling insurance by day while mine was waitressing by night and doing contract paralegal and investigator work from home.

Working from home with littles had its challenges in those pre-Zoom days. My conferencing technology was limited to a Trimline phone with a long coiled cord that, if precisely stretched, could reach from the wall outlet in the kitchen down the hall and under the bathroom door to my “office.” There in the solitude of the bathroom/laundry room I had some semblance of peace and quiet or at least could muster the illusion of professionalism when I spoke to the lawyers. Of course they had no idea I was sitting on the toilet (seat down) with the dryer going at all times for the right amount of “ white noise” to drown out barking dogs, bleating lambs, fighting or squealing toddlers or any other unsavory life noises.

A few days prior, I’d just gotten a new murder case, and was working with some pretty hot-shot defense lawyers that I’d never worked with before, so I wanted to make a good first case review impression.

“Oh crap,” I thought, as I covered the receiver to muffle out the sounds erupting from my kitchen. I scanned the room and my initial take wasn’t pretty, and was going to require some fast action to have an adult phone conversation. In one corner of the kitchen there was a box with two half frozen lambs from last night's storm; they both needed a bottle. In the other my wet Border Collie Molly. Then there was Jake my walking toddler tsunami, a slurry of mud, snow and whatever else comes from a puddle at the lambing barn. He needed a diaper and clothes change. Then there was Meg age 3 who was trying to manage the whole situation by chasing her younger, though larger, brother and demanding compliance. “I mean it Little Buddy. take those boots off now!”

I went into overdrive mode to take control of the situation. First, and best trained, was Molly and with a snap of my fingers as I pointed to the door she exited without a fuss. Next, I “shushed” Meg by holding my finger up to my lips and whispering….. “please please watch Jake and don’t bother me unless someone is bleeding. Mommy has a really really important meeting.” She nodded her head, looked at Jake and they both burst out laughing. Neither of them were nearly as well trained as Molly. I knew I was in trouble. Oh well, there’s no time for plan B or further training at this time.

I grabbed my case notebook off the counter, skillfully stretched the phone cord around the corner and under the bathroom door, started the dryer, assumed the position and uncovered the receiver.

“Okay, sorry about that… where did you want to start?”

During the course of that meeting there were small fingers slipped under the door - - no blood I might add. There were sounds of little hooves on my kitchen floor as the lambs were lifted out to play, the sound of the refrigerator opening and closing (for snacks) and knocks on the door asking where more wipes were because Meg was going to change Jake. This all the while Joe's tennis shoes rumbled around and around in the dryer. I’d forgotten they were in the dryer before I pushed the start button. Oops…..so instead of white noise, that day the dryer offered more of a thunderstorm-type background noise.

As I hung up the phone after that most-unsettling meeting, I held my breath before opening the door to see what had transpired in my absence in the rest of the house. Miraculously, Jake was in a new slightly lopsided diaper playing tractors on the floor while Meg sat in the lamb’s box dressing them in her doll clothes. Molly (my Border Collie) was back inside the kitchen supervising and seemed to have the whole situation under control. The kitchen floor was muddy, but no worse for wear.

That “trimline” meeting had so many familiar chaotic nuances of those early days for our little family and yet somehow those days seemed like simpler times. Looking back the precarity of those days was such an important ingredient in the blender that makes this delicious incurable elixir we call life.

I’m ever so grateful for my precarious Trimline meetings and their part in my special elixir. I just can’t get enough of it.

Who needs Zoom when you’ve got a Trimline and a dryer?