Phone process is baffling

It’s officially summer. I can tell this even without a calendar. The loud vehicles have come out of hibernation. The local fireworks store has opened and assorted crinkly noises and random loud booms will be normal for the next month or so. The eternal task of weeding has begun. 

Speaking of calendars, they seem to be as outdated as that reliable old black telephone most of us grew up with. It used to be that a majority of businesses provided their customers with a free calendar every year. I can’t remember the last free calendar we received. 

Calendars have almost gone the way of phone books. They can still be found if one looks hard enough. It used to be that every house had at least one phone book thick enough to serve as a booster seat for small children. If more height was needed the annual Sears catalog could provide an additional lift. Nobody worried that the little ones might fall off a precarious stack of books and catalogs.

We don’t live in that world anymore. Some days that is good and other days, not so much. My daughter gave me a new phone last week. She thinks my old flip phone is outdated. For the first few days the new phone sat in its little box gathering up its courage to come out and play. 

We took it to a store that sold that particular model. Apparently, only specific personnel are allowed to get near it. The official phone guy installed the battery and a few other things before telling us that they weren’t supposed to tell us how the phone worked. He was serious. I resisted the urge to tell him that was about the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.

After we brought the phone back home, I managed to find a website in the tiny booklet that had been packaged with the device. This took a while because the print was as small as possible. Even with the new found directions I am still puzzled. I told my daughter that I looked through the packaging and didn’t see a child enclosed with the phone. 

I may have to capture a random kid to show me how to properly use the thing. If you get the idea that I am beyond frustrated that a hunk of plastic makes me feel like I am the dumbest and most inept person on the planet, you are right. It also makes me feel older than dirt. 

I remember when telephones were used to make phone calls. They didn’t take pictures. They didn’t stop working in the middle of a sentence. They didn’t require directions. It was easy to hear what the other party was saying and nobody even thought about carrying the thing everywhere. The new phones are the indispensable security blankets of today.

Someday I may figure out how to properly use it. Right now it is silently sticking out its tongue while telling me that as soon as I do discover its secrets, technology will change and a completely different set of directions will apply.