When Did I Get So Old? The Phone Edition

I’m too old to use a telephone.

This occurred to me over the weekend, when I purchased one of those newfangled touch-screen phones that do everything but wash your dishes. Although they may do that, too — but I’ll never know because I can’t figure the thing out.

My husband went with me to get the phone. This wasn’t because I was incapable of choosing a phone —I had already picked out the model— but rather because I lapse into a drooling trance when I have to listen to someone wax poetic about technology. For me, technology is a tool, not an orgasmic experience. My husband, on the other hand, embraces the witty repartee of the techno geek, so he tagged along to play good cop to my admittedly bad one. Or, as it turned out, to watch the kids while I was wooed.

The young man behind the counter practically sprinted in our direction when we walked in. I took this as a bad omen: the slimy salesperson ready to pounce on the unprepared. But as it turned out, he was simply, incredibly, stratospherically enthusiastic. He clutched his breast and nearly fainted when I removed my current phone from my pocket, the trusty device I’d had for four years and two bouts with swimming pools (apparently some sort of record). He nodded sympathetically when I admitted that I didn’t really want to part with the thing, but the screen had finally given out and the loud buzz it emitted was making it a tad difficult to hear people. He smiled sweetly when I elucidated my plaintive desire: I really just wanted a phone — you know, something on which I could communicate verbally with people. I didn’t much care about texting or emailing or snapping photos or shooting video or whatever else the kids were doing these days. But, at the insistence of my colleagues at the magazine, I decided to drag myself into the 21st Century and obtain the very latest form of communication technologically possible.

When I announced which phone I’d decided to purchase, the young man beamed at my obviously excellent taste. The next 30 minutes flew by, as I was introduced to gel skins and screen protectors and voodoo magic that somehow transferred all of my contacts from my old phone to the new fandangled one. The young man then handed me the shiny new phone and sent me on my way with a bright smile — and his business card in case I had any trouble.

Which I did. Pretty much as soon as I walked out the door.

First of all, how do I turn the damn thing on? Touching the screen didn’t get me anywhere, so I started randomly pushing buttons. I don’t know which one of them worked, but the screen lit up like a Christmas tree so, whew, crisis averted.

Except…I had no clue how to dial.

Now call me old fashioned, but I rather expect dialing to be the thing a phone does best, seeing as it’s a phone and all.

But no….this space age jobby wouldn’t debase itself in such a manner. It’s sleek. It’s cool. It’s sophisticated. And that means it would never be so obvious about the low tech task I bought it to do.

After angrily jabbing the screen in a futile attempt to find something that looked remotely like a telephone keypad, I stumbled onto it as if by magic.

Then I tried to access my voicemail.

I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that I finally admitted defeat and called the phone company and asked them to break into my voicemail. To which the nice young man on the other end replied, “Uh, ma’am…you know you can press ‘one’ on your keypad just like you did with your old phone and it will take you to voicemail automatically, right?”

No, sonny, I didn’t.

So I admit: I’m too damned old to use a phone. Someone should just throw me a tin can and some string and have done with it. At least then I’d be able to figure out the mechanics of the whole shebang.

Meantime, my four-year-old son has commandeered my old phone and as I watch him chat with Luke Skywalker and the rebel alliance, I long for the days when life was so simple. When phones were phones. When people actually talked.

But those days are gone with the wind….and I am Scarlett O’Hara, punching my fist into the smoke-filled air of my now-scorched telephonic existence and declaring:

“As God is my witness, I’ll never be called again!”