Techno Challenged

“You need a new phone.” It was true; my cell phone seemed to have something wrong with it. For starters, the battery seemed wonky. Every night when I placed it in its charging cradle, it said “charging”, but an hour after I slipped it into my pocket, it would bleat at me- “Low battery”, “Feed me" it flashed. That, plus the fact that I could neither send a message nor receive one, convinced my tech-savvy daughter that a new unit was in order.

Bright and early the next day, phone flashing “Feed me”, we trundled off to the phone store. Ariel stopped by the door at a bank of screens and signed us in. “What’s your number?” she asked before filling in a crucial data line marked with an asterisk to indicate it was a crucial data line. I had no idea, having never called myself on my cell. “No problem,”, she whipped out her phone, one of those sleek jobs that open either vertically or horizontally, depending on intended use, and checked my number in her favorites list. We were in the system and shortly a bright young man asked us how he could help us. I explained the problem and he grew solemn. Taking my phone he asked “How old is this?” I had no idea. “Must be four or five years old” he muttered and called over a co-worker. “Have you ever seen one like this before?” he asked, making my phone sound like something Lee used to text message Pickett at Gettysburg just before the big assault. “You need a new battery, but I don’t think we have anything this old in stock. We can special order one from the Nokia factory in Finland or we can give you an upgrade.” He led us over to the display phones, pointing out various features. “GPS, 64 HD rez, 15mega-whoozies, voice recognition artificial intelligence, recyclable nuclear power, heads-up graphics display, aps for choosing restaurants, hailing cabs, and leveling paintings on the wall, as well as time warp capabilities. Whadya think?”

“I’m just looking for something I can call with and text.” I said, feeling a bit like Fred Flintstone in a Jetsons cartoon. “No problem,” came the answer, “We’ve got just the thing.” He steered me to a black Samsung; menu button, contacts button, no frills. Fine. Deal done, I took a good look at my new hand-held communications device. Wait. This is a phone for an old person, maybe a preschooler. Nice big number buttons. A dedicated 911 button in case I fall and can’t get up, an ICE button to be used for emergency contacts in case I fall and can’t get up and forget that 911 is an emergency button, and a Health Info button in case I fall and not only can I not get up but forget how to call for help. Even the menu has a line in big red letters for emergency contacts. This is a phone for a true hypochondriac, or maybe something to use while digging out of the steaming wreckage from the latest hurricane or earthquake. This is not your father’s Oldsmobile—wait, it’s your grandfather’s Oldsmobile. Huh. Oh well, as long as it gets me from here to there.