When we upgraded from our shiny flip phone to those new-fangled iPhones, I knew there would be an upheaval in our household.
The only time we used the flip was for emergencies, or when we were travelling so if we went in the ditch we could phone the tow truck operator or a close friend.
That phone knew its place and kept to it — it was a telephone, a piece of equipment that allowed us to make phone calls. It had no other use and did not intrude into our lives unless we allowed the intrusion. We had one phone number that we only shared with a few folks, meaning that if it rang, it was one of those few individuals. The scam artists never, ever called that number.
We grumbled when we heard our flip phone was obsolete and would have to be replaced by a certain date. But we gave in to the rules and visited the phone shop where we had agreed that we just wanted a phone that made and received calls, with no fancy abilities to do anything else.
Housemate forgot our agreement and told the sales person we each wanted an iPhone and from that moment to this, those phones have wormed their way into our lives, if not fully into our hearts.
Housemate embraced his new phone with determination and an attitude surely not seen since the invention of the typewriter. He fiddled with it and fooled with it and gradually turned that phone into an extension of his life, a growth taking over his hand, a growth with the only cure being when the battery ran down.
Ask a question in a conversation and out it comes while he looks up the answer. He’s even started talking out loud to it, asking questions and sometimes getting unusual and quirky answers:
For instance: “What is the score between the Regina Pats and Lethbridge Hurricanes?” Answer: “There is no evidence of a hurricane in Regina.”
That taught him to be more specific in his questions, but it didn’t deter him from making that phone his walking encyclopedia. In fact, a friend refers to the phone as “Ron’s magic machine.” That machine is seldom out of his hand or mind.
My phone, on the other hand, is usually in a slide-in pocket in my purse, and I use it mostly for making phone calls and sending text messages. And I have some photos on there that I haven’t learned how to send to anyone or even to my own photo file on my computer.
Because it is in my purse upstairs, I do not hear the ping of a newly-sent text message when I am downstairs. And sometimes when I am in the far corner of the basement doing laundry I often don’t hear it ring. Shame on me for not fully embracing my own magic machine.
I have learned how to play cribbage on my already-out-of-date phone and have used the health application to input all my allergies and emergency contacts.
When I do click on that icon to check how many flights of stairs I’ve climbed or how much distance I’ve walked, it tells me I didn’t use the stairs and only walked .05 kms. Baloney.
That .05 kms must have been registered when I moved my purse from one spot to another upstairs. With so many people laughing at my phone phobia, I will do my best to keep the phone somewhere on my person so I may be fully in touch with everyone, even the stranger who keeps inviting me to dinner.
Joyce Walter can be reached at ronjoy@sasktel.net
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
