Sheila opened the front door and shouted “Hello everyone I’m home.” The silence was almost audible. All she could hear was the cat miaowing.

Sheila took off her shoes and went into the kitchen. Her husband, Walter, was sitting at the table pressing his Blackberry with a pointer. He was frowning with concentration.

“Hello Walter, how are you?” asked Sheila.

Walter sighed and replied “I’m busy Sheila, just finishing off some things for work.”

“Did you feed the cat?”

“What?”

“That furry thing we bought from the shelter six months ago.”

“Oh that, no I didn’t have time, no, I’ve been busy since I got home.”

“Where are the boys?”

“In their rooms I think, I really didn’t check.”

“You didn’t check?” Sheila was alarmed at the lackadaisical attitude of her husband on some occasions and this was one of them.

Walter waved his hand vaguely in the direction of the bedrooms upstairs “Well, I looked in and they were on the Internet, so I left them to it. As I said I have some things to do for work, emails to check, and a couple of meetings to set up.”

“Walter, when did you leave work?” asked Sheila.

“At about five, I drove home and then started working again.”

“And did you talk on the phone when you were driving?”

Walter looked guilty as he said “Just a couple of conversations yes.”

“So how many meetings did you have today?”

“Four, just four.”

“Are you interested in what I did today?” enquired Sheila.

Walter wasn’t concentrating and was going through the motions of being ‘interested’ as he replied “Of course what did you do today, darling?”

‘I entered the customer details for fifteen insurance cases on to the system and I must have heard the snippets of around sixty different phone conversations from people walking by my cubicle…”

“Sixty phone calls – you should get an i-Pad and then you could store them all so you can access them later.”