Phones

This past week, Honey and I were dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. 

It all started innocently enough. 

The batteries on our cell phones were getting old and were beginning to need recharging way too often.  I had already planned to buy replacement batteries when we received a notice from ATT – our contract was up, and we were eligible for new phones and a cheaper plan that included unlimited voice and text and a small (300MB) amount of data per month. 

Our old phones had texting capability – at an extra charge – but we never used it.  In fact, I had it turned off so that we would not accidentally incur charges.  I’ll admit I never wanted texting – I’m old fashioned enough to think telephones are for talking.

Getting used to the new phones is presenting a huge learning curve.  The touch-screen (non-adjustable as far as I can determine) varies from much too sensitive to not sensitive enough.  The tiny keyboard was designed for use by Lilliputians.  I received my first call while at the grocery store, and almost lost it while I was figuring out how to just answer the darn phone.

The salesgirl – not so PC shorthand for a customer service technical mentor of the feminine gender somewhere in her early 20s – made a mess of setting up our new equipment. 

I noticed in the store that she had installed Honey’s contacts on both phones, so she took them back and did them all over again.  We were back home before we realized that she had messed that up, too.  When Honey tried to call me from her new phone and instead got access to retrieve my voice mail, we knew something was wrong – it turned out that her info was installed on the phone with my phone number and vice-versa.

At least that was easily fixed.   I went back to the ATT store and explained the problem.  The guy behind the counter just swapped SIM cards in the two phones and, Voila!, problem solved. 

I may not be able to operate my new phone yet, but I’m not exactly a cell phone novice.  In the late 80s, I was part owner of a company that sold cell phones.  Those were analog phones, and we offered two options – a phone permanently installed in your car, or a Motorola “portable”  like this:

Known as a Bag Phone, this baby weighed nearly four pounds (almost all battery) and let you talk for about 20 minutes before it had to be recharged. There were so few cell towers back then that the phone was totally useless outside of (and in multiple dead spots within) the city limits.  It cost just over $1500, and the minimum monthly service charge was around $300.

Speaking of battery life, remember that I said we were having to recharge our old phones too often?  Every couple of days instead of every four or five?  The salesgirl warned us that, because of all the enhancements on our new phones, they will have to visit the charger practically every night.  So far, it seems that at least she got that part right.

I guess that’s progress.