Smart Phones For Dummies

smartphone-junkie-man-49871925While most people have been using smartphones for ages, I finally inherited a hand-me-down iPhone 5 from my husband’s secretary. At long last, I possessed that amazing little gadget that can do everything but wipe my backside. I can get organized, share FaceTime with family (here is an explanation on how to use it on any Android machine), text message friends and dance my heart out to iTunes. Just one problem, they don’t make smart phones for dummies.

Case in point ME. When I went to phone store center to trade in my antique Nokia, the clerk laughed out loud. “Wow, it’s been eons since I have seen one of these.”

Within 48 hours of activating my phone chip, I made so many gaffs the Frenchman threatened to confiscate it.

While walking home from school, I tried calling the hubby at his printing office in Lausanne; instead I rang my daughter at her pediatric clinic in Minneapolis. That went down real well.

In PE class, I thought I was recording students’ lap times; instead I was setting the alarm clock.

“Who’s calling?” I screamed waking up that night.

“You!” the hubby grumbled. “You set your phone to ring at two a.m.!”

When it comes to technology, I am one step behind and a term or two off beat. When my students told me about that instant messaging thing, I said, “Cool! I need to get what’s up.”

They laughed me out of the classroom.

“It’s not what’s up,” a student said, ‘it’s Whatsapp` an application for free messaging.”

Application? One uses an application to seek employment, to enter university, and to do calculus. What does “application” have to do with finding out, “What’s up, bro?”

It gets worse. During a staff meeting my sweatshirt pouch burst out singing in Janet Jackson’s voice. I swore I turned off my walking-to-school music. Savvy colleagues explained that moving around with an iPhone in your pocket could turn on iTunes.

Texting is a whole other ball game. Seriously, how can anyone text and drive? It’s like diving off a cliff with your hands tied to your feet. Even at my desk with both hands on my device, I have yet to text without falling off my chair. Besides by the time I punch in the correct letters, my brain’s faulty memory bank has already forgotten the message. Even my 81-year-old, nimble-fingered mom can text faster than me.

Stranger things keep happening. Yesterday all by itself my little iPhone burst into song and dance, playing Walk the Line by Johnny Cash…. I don’t even like Johnny Cash. Next thing I know Sandra Beckwith, a marketing guru, is telling me how to sell more books – from a class I took five years ago. My husband, who was watching Netflix on TV downstairs, explained that sometimes it sets off iTunes when the computer nearby is on the same network. Well, how dumb is that?

Worse yet, every time he receives a call for another crisis at work, my phone rings too.

And if these phones are so smart, how come they get lost all the time? Mine has little electronic legs and never stays where I put it. When I misplaced it at school, I stayed up all night worrying that a techie teen would crack my code and access my top-secret contact list.

But you know me; I am always willing to give it a go. So send me your cell number and I’ll ring you the next time I’m in your neighborhood, if can catch that darn phone that keeps running away from home.

Meanwhile my brain becomes more muddled; numbers scramble, fingers freeze on the keyboard, … applications, smapplications, crapplications…will I ever understand that mumble jumble tech speak?

I am convinced my iPhone 5 is possessed, so I am upgrading as soon as they invent that smart phone for dummies.

Posted in family, humor, social view.

36 Comments

    • I wish I had too. By the time I figure it out, they’ll come out with something faster, better, more complicated and I’ll be lost again. Great to hear from you. Are you still in the Corn Belt?

  2. Oh Pat, I laughed out loud through this entire tirade. Because I can relate! Luckily I have my tech-savvy grandsons nearby to bail me out 🙂

    • Oh Kathy, what would we do without the younger generation to save us every time we lose it. Now when the kids see me coming after them carrying my cell phone or computer, they run the other way.

  3. Oh Pat, I laughed out loud through this entire tirade. Because I can relate! Luckily I have my tech-savvy grandsons nearby to bail me out 🙂

  4. I LOVED this! It was me all over again when I got my first smart phone except, get this… I didn’t know how to answer it! I felt like such a dufus as we were with my husband’s high school buddies and I kept yelling at my phone that it was stupid. I couldn’t answer it. No one told me to swipe the screen! And you are much braver than me. I don’t use iTunes and many other “wonderful apps” people claim are out there. It’s safe just the way I use it now. Oh, another ‘except’ is that I have a ton of beautiful photos on my phone but don’t know what the heck to do with them.
    But welcome to the tech world. I’m sure we’ll end up surprising each other in the middle of the night sometime with an untimely What’s App message or worse. I have to believe there is hope for us as long as we surround ourselves with youth!

    • We truly are two peas in a pod. I am warning the Frenchman not to be alarmed when the phone rings in the night, I know it’ll be my soul sister fumbling around with her smart phone.

    • I often wonder if I am crazy or if the world is upside down. So glad to be connected with a like mind, though I am imagine you are much more techie than me.

    • I often wonder if I am crazy or if the world is upside down. So glad to be connected with a like mind, though I am imagine you are much more techie than me.

  7. This is so hilarious, Pat and yet so true. A baby-boomer nightmare. BTW: How could you not love Johnny Cash?! I walk the line, missy 🙂

  8. This is so hilarious, Pat and yet so true. A baby-boomer nightmare. BTW: How could you not love Johnny Cash?! I walk the line, missy 🙂

  9. Hi Pat! I must say that I resisted my getting a SMART phone in the beginning but now I’m hooked. Sure sometimes it doe something far beyond my abilities to understand…but much of the time it does things and gives me access to so much more without it–so I’m hooked. Besides that it gives us lots to talk and blog about. Thanks for the laughs. ~Kathy

    • Oh I know one day (hopefully) I will love it if I can ever figure it out. It has gotten so bad that I am afraid to carry it because I never know what it will do next.

    • Love it, Brenda. I am not alone..”humbled by my stupidity” says it all. Oh well, I am sure it keeps my students entertained to see me fumble around with the chrome book, white board, and now the iPhone.

  14. Pat, thanks for a much-needed laugh today! I feel your pain. Truly. Technology just keeps advancing faster and faster, and it’s hard even for us “geeks” to keep up. You know, I think a business called Rent-A-Kid would go over bigly-big — you could rent out a teen to help set up tech items like computers, phones, and TVs, then send them on their merry way (laughing, I imagine!!)

    • Oh no, Debbie, if you can’t even keep up, I am doomed. Love your idea of a Rent-A-Kid to be on call 24/7 for tech problems. Tomorrow, I am going to propose it my homeroom class of seniors. Heck, I’d even give them extra credit or a stellar college recommendation for it. ha ha

  15. Pat, thanks for a much-needed laugh today! I feel your pain. Truly. Technology just keeps advancing faster and faster, and it’s hard even for us “geeks” to keep up. You know, I think a business called Rent-A-Kid would go over bigly-big — you could rent out a teen to help set up tech items like computers, phones, and TVs, then send them on their merry way (laughing, I imagine!!)

  16. I am still laughing after re-reading this today to send a reply in I too have an iPhone 5 and vow never to upgrade until it dies, as I can’t take on any more tech changes… I call it preserving my ‘digital wellbeing’ as you know from my recent Facebook post I am feeling like a tech geek this week as I have just been taught how to use emojis by Safiya’s friend – but what am I going to do when my teenage daughters and their friends grow up and leave me in a tech desert…???? lots of love, miss you funny lady xxxx

    • Love your apt term, digital well being. I don’t think I will ever feel well.. being in the digital age. Unfortunately I no longer have a techie teen in the house to teach me new tricks like emojis, so I end up asking my students in class. They must be thinking who is that tennis shoe toting, old lady from the Dark Ages that has no clue how to turn on a computer? “Plug it in, might help.” Miss you too dear friend.

      • LOL, you wordsmith you …remember, you offer so much more to your 21st century students than they can offer you – for we are embodied examples of how to survive all these years without technology…. now THAT is a real feat

  19. LOL,Pat! Would love for you to call me when you’re in my neighborhood! 815-716-0956.good luck with the phone!

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