PHONE CALL

“He that sendeth a message by the hand of a fool cutteth off the feet, and drinketh damage.” (Proverbs 26:6)

In the days before Alexander Graham Bell, people often had to rely on sending messages using unreliable messengers; thus the value of the telephone and particularly of the cellular phone. It’s hard for me to believe that as of November, I’ll have been a cell phone user for ten years. (I was once one of those people who said I’d NEVER have a cell phone. I also once said I’d never use a computer. Yes, as I wrote in my last posting, “never say never”!)

My collectibles sale on my 55th birthday this past Saturday went very well. I was hoping for at least thirty people to show up and I believe the actual number who came was twelve. Yet, those twelve spent some serious money. I’ve had some successful auto collectibles sales in the past, but this was (financially speaking) my most successful collectibles sale! I was so excited that I picked up my cell phone to call my daughter in Missouri and tell her. In the middle of that call the cell phone flew out of my hand and slammed onto the asphalt driveway. I picked up the phone trying to use it, but it kept automatically shutting itself off. This was the third actual cell phone I’ve owned and I’ve had it since June 2006. Yes, I was fifteen months overdue for an upgrade. I had been receiving letters and e-mails from Verizon telling me to come in for an upgrade, but I kept putting it off.

Some folks think people who write blogs are really computer savvy. With me, nothing could be further from the truth! I’m VERY technically challenged. Each time I get a new cell phone, I practically need a class to teach me how to use it! I can’t IMAGINE ever having something like a Blackberry (but I’m not saying “never”!). After the collectibles sale, I went into the Verizon store at Natick’s Sherwood Plaza. I found an LG phone which seemed to be the Fall 2009 version of the phone I had. My name was called by a saleswoman. She couldn’t have been any more than 24, IF that. I felt like I was 85 instead of 55 as I described my problem and said I wanted a very simple phone as close as possible to the one I had been using. She led me right to the LG phone I’d picked out. She wanted to put “Bluetooth capability” and all kinds of other stuff on it, but I said “no”. She was AMAZED that I had never programmed ANYTHING into my cell phone...nothing for speed dialing or anything! (I actually DID with the very first cell phone I ever owned, but it was so complicated for me to do, that I never bothered with it on the next phones.) Looking at me as if to ask, “What time do you have to get back to the nursing home?” she said, “Enjoy your new phone”. I will say I WAS glad they took my old phone as a “donation”.

I had to ask my 22-year-old daughter to help me understand the menu and a few other things about the new phone. This one plays a song instead of “ringing” and I’m not used to that. (Don’t even ask me about downloading ringtones...are you kidding?!) I DO know how to put the phone on “vibrate” so I’m proud of that!

I’m actually considering the new phone a birthday present so it’s been kind of cool. This is the first phone I’ve ever had which is also a camera. Of course, I don’t know how to use the camera feature yet, but I hope to figure it out, or more likely have someone show me!

So, on Saturday, it was time for me to call on Verizon for a new phone so I can continue to make phone calls!

(Anybody else out there as technically challenged as I am?)