I have a new cell phone. And it only took about two days to
realize that buying a new cell phone was a giant mistake. I liked
my old cell phone. It was 5 years old
– which is the equivalent of a ball of string and two empty soup
cans in cell phone years.
I have a new cell phone. And it only took about two days to realize that buying a new cell phone was a giant mistake. I liked my old cell phone. It was 5 years old – which is the equivalent of a ball of string and two empty soup cans in cell phone years.
Anyway, I loved that phone. It never got lost in my purse. Heck, it was so big that it needed its own purse. It was made of some obnoxious indestructible yellow and black plastic that made it look like I was talking into a giant bumblebee, but it never once broke when I dropped it. And I dropped it a lot.
Of course, you always miss something once it’s gone. And I took it for granted. It was always there, weighing down my right shoulder so I walked funny. And sometimes people would call and it wouldn’t even ring. I figure it was protecting me from spending too much time on the phone. Or maybe it was just malfunctioning. I think that could go either way.
But the thing was, I knew how to work my old cell phone. OK, truthfully, I never did figure out how to turn the ringer off – but other than that I could work that phone. The new one? Not so much.
For one thing, it has a lot of stuff on it. Now, I like that stuff. I can surf the Web, check out my e-mail, listen to music and probably a lot of other stuff I haven’t even discovered yet. It’s way, way cool. Unfortunately, all that cool has a dark side. A dark side called ring tones.
I didn’t have ring tones on my old phone. It just chirped. But my new phone has about 40 billion ring tones that are so realistic they confuse me. Take the other day in Nob Hill. I was really focused, mainly because I forgot my list and I had to dig deep into my fading brain cells to try to remember where I was, why I was there and what I was supposed to buy. And let’s not even get into the brain cells sacrificed when I tried to remember where my car was parked.
Suddenly, I heard a dog barking. Now the first thing I thought was “Is dog food on the list?” That thought was followed by “Who the heck brought their yappy dog to the grocery store? Isn’t there anywhere safe from people carrying yappy dogs in giant purses?” So I walked away from the yappy dog.
And it followed me. That’s right. Everywhere I went – despite the fact that I was alone in the aisle – the yappy dog was there. It’s like a yappy dog ghost was haunting me on aisle three at Nob Hill.
And then I realized two things. No. 1: I’ve never heard of a yappy dog ghost at Nob Hill; and No. 2: Unless the yappy dog was haunting my pocket, it was actually a ring tone on my phone. Turns out my charming child, who does know how to work all the stuff on my phone, had changed all my ring tones.
And now, every time I turn around, there’s a new ring tone. I swear that child gets up in the middle of the night and messes with my phone. The other day, I’m sitting in a meeting that took place in the office of a converted house. The doorbell starts ringing. Over and over and over again.
Of course, the first thing I thought was, “How rude to just ring the doorbell a billion times.” This was followed by, “I am going to kill my child,” because I realized the doorbell was coming from my pocket. Again.
I spent 10 minutes staring out the back door, trying to figure out where the ducks were hiding in my backyard. No ducks. Just my phone. I took apart Junior’s room, looking for escaped crickets, only to discover that it was my phone ringing. I honked and gave a rude gesture to a gentleman backing out of a parking spot when I heard an old-fashioned car horn honk at me. Yeah, it was my phone. I’m sorry, sir. Really.
At this point, I’ve just given up. I change everything to a regular cell phone chirp, only to find them changed back. So if you see a confused woman standing in Nob Hill talking into a soup can, say hi. That’ll be me.
