Quit, give up, or surrender. No matter how you say it, I’ve had enough and I’m doing it.
Growing up at 110 Flamingo Street, Dad used to say, “Winners never quit, and quitters never win.” Now that I’m an official quitter, I’ve got news for Dad: He was right.
I’m not trying to win anymore – just trying to survive. So what has pushed me out of the winner’s circle, you may ask? I’ll give you a hint: growing up it usually came either in black, white, or avocado.
Yes, Dear Reader, the phone is the reason why I’m a quitter now. Back in the day, phones stayed on the wall where they belonged and you knew what to do with them. When the phone rang, you’d pick it up and answer because that’s all you could do — unless, of course, you wanted to use it as a yo-yo and throw it at your brothers. The springy cord brought the phone right back. Try doing that with a cell phone.
But I digress. This story isn’t about how we whacked each other with phones attached to springy cords; it’s about new smartphones and all they can do. But trust me, just answering the phone isn’t so simple anymore.
Hard as it may be for some young folks out there to believe, when we were away from the house, we actually never thought about a phone. We went about our lives happily knowing that, when we got back home, the phone would be right where we left it – on the wall. Things certainly have changed since I lived on Flamingo Street. No longer is there a phone easily found hanging on the wall in our kitchen. Not being able to find the phone was the end to what had turned out to be a very long and frustrating day. Here’s the beginning.
The Wife and I don’t want to be left behind or labeled “out of date” so we upgrade every two years to the newest cell phone. This was simple at first. When the phone came, we took it out of the box, charged it, and then used it.
With the passage of time, phones got a whole lot smarter, but seems I haven’t. My new phone came around noon, and I had to use my old phone to call for help just to find out how to turn the new one on. Simple, right? I quickly found out there’s nothing simple about new smartphones.
Before using the new phone, the old phone had to be backed up to the Cloud. Looking outside at the clear blue sky with no clouds in sight, I really didn’t understand how to do such a thing. So I used my old phone and called for help. The technician spent the next hour walking me through the process, none of which I really understood. When we finally finished, he said I could now use my phone and I could call him back if I had any more trouble.
To answer a call, all I had to do was use my fingerprint! There was even a feature that could locate my lost phone. That could come in handy because I’m always losing my car keys, but even I didn’t know just how soon that special feature would be used.
The Wife got home around 6 p.m. and quickly thought her husband had finally lost it. She was right, I indeed had. But it wasn’t my mind I’d lost.
I was going through each room calling out, “Phone, phone. Where are you, phone?” I was trying to activate the location feature for my new phone I’d just misplaced.
When I informed The Wife what I was doing, she shook her head and gave me a hug and kiss before going into the bedroom for a much-deserved nap as I continued my search.
Later in the evening, I found the smartphone wedged in-between two couch cushions (I blame one of the cats) only to discover my fingerprint wouldn’t unlock it. I would’ve thrown the phone across the room, but with no springy cord, that didn’t seem like a good idea.
The next day I called the technician back for help. He asked one question that made me feel I wasn’t smart enough to use a smartphone. His question was, “Did you first take off the clear plastic protective sheet on the front of the phone?”
This weekend I’m going to all the garage sales around our hometown. Hopefully someone will have an old-style wall phone in black, white, or avocado with a long springy cord. Wonder if they’ll take an even swap for a new smartphone?
[Rick Ryckeley, who lives in Senoia, served as a firefighter for more than two decades and has been a weekly columnist since 2001. His email is storiesbyrick@gmail.com. His books are available at www.RickRyckeley.com.]
