I have a smart phone and let me tell you, it’s not so smart. Since switching carriers and upgrading my phone, I do have access to email and Facebook, which helps me market my business. I also have a killer application for Solitaire – but that’s really where the fun stops.
My new provider doesn’t like it when I call my parents, in fact, it won’t let me call them. I get beeps on the line, can’t get through to them or their answering machine, and my phone number shows up on their caller I.D. different each time – sometimes it’s a California number, sometimes I’m so-and-so Hernandez. When I finally do reach them, the person on each end of the line sounds like they are talking under water.
Smart phone fail.
Just when I thought I had my phone figured out, I saw that I had an update to download. I clicked the button and ten minutes later, it looked like a completely different phone – even the time appeared in a different font. I missed a call the first time it rang, because it changed the way you answer it, and it took me two days to find the alarm clock.
Shortly after the phone update I was chatting with some women about their cell phones.
“It took me a month to figure out how to delete a contact,” one confessed.
“I keep butt-dialing my mom,” another said. She continued to tell about the time she was out shopping with a friend who told her that her purse was talking. Sure enough, it was her mother’s voice coming through the phone, buried at the bottom of her purse, asking if she was okay. Her phone moved around just enough, unlocked itself and dialed her mother. Sure, her phone encourages her to talk to her parents. I wonder why mine won’t do things like that?
“I just want a good, old fashioned phone,” the same woman continued, using her hands to talk. “One that I can snap shut and so I know that’s it’s not going to randomly dial people.”
We laughed at her version of an “old fashioned” phone. First of all, it appears that cell phone manufacturers have heard similar cries, as they are starting to go back to the “flip” designs, but secondly, it made us flash back to the phone evolution.
We talked about sleek cordless landline phones, which made life easier; the giant cordless phones from the 80s that we see in movies where actors pull the antennae out of the top; and finally, we landed at rotary phones. One woman looked at two of us and said, “I bet you’ve never even seen one of those.”
“Actually, I have one in my kitchen,” I said. It’s an alarming color of green and it’s just fabulous, even if it’s not functioning.
The other woman she referred to said, “We had one growing up, but when you would dial certain numbers, it would shock you.” She was convinced the shocks were specific to boys’ phone numbers and it was used as a deterrent for when she or her sister wanted to talk on the phone.
Apparently no phone is perfect. I would settle for one that lets me call who I want to call and one that doesn’t shock me, of course.
I just need to figure out a way to be smarter than my smart phone.