I have a love hate relationship with my new cell phone.  I was happily tooling along with my old blackberry wanna-be phone, when everyone would say to me, “Why don’t you get a new cell phone and send that dinosaur to the tar pits.”  But I held out. I liked my little button keyboard. But it was getting difficult to read the small print. And I could only set three alarms (woefully deficient, as I will explain later). Also the battery wasn’t holding a charge….

Alright already, I give up. I will get a new phone!

So I prepared myself for the battle that was about to begin… choosing a new phone. My husband and I get into the car and head off to the store. I white knuckle it all the way. We near the mall. I begin to chant very softly under my breath. As we park the car my husband turns to me, “What are you saying?”  I reply… “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can!” I mutter this all the way into the store.

The door shuts behind me, a bead of sweat rolls down my forehead. I almost feel like I’m in some kind of a dream. I am about to run when “Hello…how can I help you” echoes in my ears. My breathing gets faster and I hear my husband’s voice say “My wife needs a new cell phone.”
I am about to keel over when out of the corner of my eye I notice a glimmer. Something catches my attention. There on display: a cell phone, 3″ by 6″, touch screen – all the bells and whistles. The salesperson lifts it from it’s throne and hands it to me. “See how big the font is. And you can make all the pictures bigger, and you can set as many alarms as you want,” she says hypnotically. In my trance, I say “I can set as many alarms as I want?” (you see when you take med’s every 2 hours or so you need a lot of alarms to make sure you don’t miss a dose. Because you really don’t want to miss a dose!) The hook is in. Now she just has to reel me in.

We check out and head home with my new phone. My husband helps set up the phone. I put my contacts in. Set my alarms.  There is a list of apps longer than a menu at a tapas bar.
I head out with my new phone in tow.

Flash forward to the next day.  I’m in a parking lot and decide to look up an address before heading out. So I swipe across the phone to unlock it and I tap the icon for the Internet. This being my first time going solo with my new phone, naturally I am a bit nervous. My hands begin to shake. Music starts playing, then I hear a phone start ringing. My hands shake some more. Then a voice says “say a command.” My hands are now shaking so violently that my new phone looks like a fish out of water flapping away on the rocks. I put the phone down on the seat next to me and try to calm down.  When I have reached a state where I can possibly see what damage I have done, I hold down a button and see I have opened 17 apps, sampled music, called two people and sent three empty text messages.

I repeat I have a love hate relationship with my cell phone.