Old Phone New Phone

       I got a new phone a couple of weeks ago.  It’s just the third phone I have had since my first cell phone.  Unless you count the smartphone I bought for the Goodwife some four or five years go.  

     She was always complaining that we were out of date, that I didn’t want to try something new.  So I bought her the smart phone. 

     She never figured out how to use it.  She kept going back to her old flip phone.  One evening we dressed up a little to attend an event of some kind, maybe an alumni reunion.  She put the smartphone in her sweater pocket.  There it stayed for months.

      Normally, I could find it by calling it.  But this time, the battery was discharged and it refused to ring.  It lounged in the closet in the sweater pocket for months, until the Goodwife decided to wear that sweater again.  There it was.

     By that time, I had quit paying the bill for the thing. Upon discovering it, I decided if she wasn’t going to use it, maybe I could.  It had one attractive feature for me.  Its driving directions were much better and much more up-to-date than the Magellan (worthless) and the Garmin (somewhat better than worthless) we keep in the car.

      I reupped with Tracfone.  We had to have a new number.  We lost the old one when we quit paying for it.  I used the smartphone when we travel.  It’s handy for finding a motel you can afford or a nice place to eat.

       I really needed to replace the old flip phone.  The smartphone is too bulky to carry when I am working.  Plus, it is subject to breaking when I carry it in a pocket.

     The old flip phone has lost its external speaker.  The environment has to be pretty quiet in order for me to hear it ring.  The hinge on the cover has lost its spring and won’t stay closed.  If there is something besides the phone in my pocket, like my ear plugs, they can find their way between phone screen and cover.  That turns on the light and runs the phone battery down.

    The old phone is so old it doesn’t use the standard charging port.  I had to keep one cord just for that phone.  And one thing I will miss:  the old phone had a charging cradle.  Pop the phone into the cradle correctly and it charges without fumbling around trying to line up port and plug.

      Most of my arguments against having a smartphone have an answer.  There are smartphones that have a cover to keep it from getting broken.  There are smartphones with teeny-tiny screens so they aren’t all that bulky.    

     I held out for an old-fashioned flip phone.  The new one is quite a bit bigger and heavier than the old one.  There are many more features than the old one, too, like a camera, “cloud”, U-Tube, maps, Google, internet, email, FM radio, weather, and other stuff.

     Wait a minute.  This isn’t a smartphone?  It’s certainly smarter than I am. 

     I am making progress in using the new phone.  The old one was a Samsung, the new one a Nokia.  Different systems, different way of doing things.  It takes a few more button punches to get to the phone book, for instance.

     When I changed from my first phone to my second one, the store clerk magically held the two phones head-to-head, said a few voodoo words, and all of the contacts from the old phone magically appeared on the new one.

     This time, the young man who tried to help us couldn’t perform that magic.  He said since my old phone did not have Bluetooth, he couldn’t make the transfer.

     The Goodwife’s old phone did have Bluetooth, but he couldn’t figure out how to make the transfer of contacts form her old phone to her new one (identical to my new one) in one fell swoop.  He showed me how to do it one contact at a time.  So I did it, and it took a little time.  He said his time was worth $30 an hour to make the transfer.  My time wasn’t nearly that valuable, so I did it.

      I had to transfer my contact list one at a time, too.  But I had to type in the names and numbers.  That took a lot of time. 

      The process asked for first name, then last name, then number.  If there was more than one number, I had to punch “Add a Phone”.  After I put in that number, I had to punch “Change Phone Type” and select home, or work, or whatever.

      I discovered that the thing was alphabetizing by first letter of first name.  No, I can’t have that.  I started entering last names in the blank for first names, and the first name where the last name goes.  That didn’t work, either. 

       I go a-hunting (“A hunting I will go”) whenever I have to find someone in my contact list.  I am not sure how it is alphabetized, now.  If all else fails, I start at the beginning and scroll down.  Fortunately, my contact list isn’t that huge. 

     Ah, these time-saving devices.  I have figured out how to set the ringtone (“Nostalgia”—bell sound like an old landline phone) and the volume.  I can hear it now.  And I do know how to answer it.

     Give me a call.