[img]396|left|Alex Campbell||no_popup[/img]I hated my cell phone. I wanted a new one. I asked my Facebook friends which phone I should get. I got hundreds of responses. Okay, maybe not hundreds, but at least twelve.
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My only requirement was that it be a Verizon phone. I’d been eyeing the iPhone for awhile, but my contract with Verizon wouldn’t be up until July, and I wanted a new phone now. Plus, I had a beef with AT & T. I was talking to a friend about this. He said, “Oh, what cell phone did you have with them?” I replied, somewhat sheepishly, “Oh, it was a landline. Back in college.” I realized that I was talking about 1993. Yes, I can hold a grudge. He said it wasn’t even the same company anymore. Well, it didn’t matter anyway. I wasn’t going to break my contract with Verizon. Apparently, when you do that, you have to pay a million dollars, or they cut off your hand, or something.
I’ve never paid for a cell phone. I just sign up for the two-year contract and get whatever free phone I can. The reason I selected my previous phone was for one reason—it was purple. I discovered that choosing a phone on the basis of color alone was not a good idea.
I got sick of my phone. Technology was advancing at an alarming rate, and I was on the steam engine—chug, chug, chug. I’d run out of coal. I couldn’t text quickly with a regular keypad; 2 beeps for H, 3 beeps for I. 5 beeps for a simple greeting. I thought I should take a leap of faith and a leap into 2010 with a phone that had a Qwerty keyboard. Do you know what that is? I just learned it myself. It’s a keyboard that looks like a standard one, like the one you learned on in typing class. You did learn how to type in high school, right? Well, I did. I just found out that it gets its name from the first six letters on the keyboard—Q-W-E-R-T-Y. I still think it’s a silly name. Why can’t we just say “Standard Keyboard”?
“I’ll have a Venti latte no whip while I type on my Qwerty keyboard, considering canceling my land line.” That’s modern speak. Oh, brother.
Look Who Had Naming Rights
Okay, back to the story. A number of people on Facebook recommended getting the Droid, Verizon’s answer to the iPhone. I had a really hard time thinking about buying a phone with a name like Droid. My computer-savvy friends (read: geeks) drooled over the Droid, however, and once I tested the…keyboard just like the one on my desktop computer, I decided to go for it. Life might be fun in the 24th century!
I purchased the Droid, telling the manager what a ridiculous name I thought it was. She said that George Lucas had a hand in the naming of the phone. Okay, it all makes sense now. I warmed up to it when I saw how cute the little Droid character actually was. I got a hot pink rubberized cover for my new phone, and even a thing you hook over your ear and plug into the phone so you could be hands-free while talking (that means you can make dinner and stuff, and pretend to be a telephone operator from the 1940s). I refused to get a Blue Tooth headset. That was just too Star Trek for me.
I plunked down a large sum of money, got a rebate form, and asked how to use it. Well, it seems the Droid is so easy to use that it doesn’t come with an instruction manual! You’re supposed to just play with it and figure stuff out on your own (insert unprintable words here).
What I did instead was dash off a quick note to my friend and neighbor, Kate, who had had a Droid for a month. I went to her house with dessert, and she gave me a tutorial. I learned a thing or two that night. And then I learned how much I didn’t know, and how much I didn’t like to “play” to learn about a new gadget. I like for someone to show me. At the very least, I like to have a paper manual to refer to in emergencies. No dice. I started writing down questions, and went back to the Verizon store a week later to get some answers.
When my name was called and the salesperson asked me if I wanted sales or technical help, I said, “Technical,” and I swear, the guy made an “Ooh!” sound and jumped in the air a little bit. I whipped out my list of questions. “I can’t retrieve my messages. Why is my battery drained after one day? What does this icon mean? What’s a widget?”
He patiently answered my questions and explained that he learned how to use the Droid by just playing with it. Right. He showed me how to pull down from the top of the screen, and I said to him, “Okay, never in a million years would I even think to pull down the screen! Here’s an ‘up’ arrow on the bottom here. I would naturally push ‘up,’ but never down. How the heck am I supposed to know that?” That’s when he knew he was dealing with someone special. I was way out of my league, and we both knew it. Nevertheless, he answered the rest of my questions, showed me a couple of things he thought were cool, and wrapped up as quickly as he could.
He walked away, and as I was gathering my things, I saw the salesman who had sold me the phone. He said, “Hey, guess what I got yesterday?” I replied, “Ask me if you need any help. I’ll send you over to that guy,” pointing to my tutor who had buried his face in a display rack, trying to blend in with it. I may not be in touch with a touch phone, but at least I get to play telephone operator while making dinner.
Ms. Campbell may be contacted at campbellalexandra@hotmail.com
