My Cell Phone is Pink

People were so excited about the new i-phone this week that lines started forming at Apple stores at o'dark-thirty in the morning. All day people were standing in line hoping to get a NEW cell phone. They weren't giving them away, either. People still had to pay for the things.

There were a couple of things I would like to know: 1. What sort of jobs do people have where they can get up at o'dark thirty and stand in line all day during the week to get a cell phone? 2. If you can do so much over a cell phone, why can't you just buy this cell phone over a cell phone?

My cell phone is pink. That probably scores me about a 100% on the dork-o-meter, but one of the best things about getting old is that I really don't have to give a crap about being cool anymore. People who try to be cool over the age of about 35 are just sort of sad in a pathetic John Gosselin-Ed-Hardy-t-shirt-wearing sort of way. I am not saying you can't be current, but trying to be cool is just so painfully unfortunate. We have a neighbor, who I am certain is younger than me, but of a certain age who still D.J.'s once a week at a local club (in-NOT-Atlanta, Georgia) and drives a red mustang. He's could be the poster douche lord for mid-life crisis. He and his wife have these fights because he is always flirting with women in the neighborhood. The guy is a total putz, I'm sure he dyes his hair, yet he looks at ME like those guys in high school who thought they were so hot -- like I should want him. Not in you dreams, dude. Every neighborhood has at least one of these guys, and if yours doesn't, you need to get one because they are just loads of fun and guarantee a really great police presence in your neighborhood at least once or twice a week. Where was I?

Oh, yes -- My cell phone is pink and I am a dork. My big requirement for a cell phone is that it works. I wanted a different color than my husband's because I don't want to accidently pick-up his cell and get called for something of national importance when I am in the drive-thru at Chick-fil-a. He'd never go NEAR a pink phone. It took me forever to even attempt to carry a cell phone because when I am shopping I like to be shopping, when I am driving, I like to be driving. You get the picture. The cell phone derails my train of thought and some days that train has serious issues pulling into the 'ol depot. Nothing like standing in Lowe's after having hung-up and thinking: Why am I here? Sooner or later it's the universal question we must all ask ourselves -- but when I am at Lowe's for fire ant killer it is just not the time. My New Year's Resolution one year was to remember to carry the cell phone. This went about as well as all my other resolutions. Seriously, I have heart problems, but I just can't seem to remember the damn thing. I know I NEED to carry it. I just have issues with it.

Now my husband is deployed and I am TRYING to remember to carry the cell phone because who knows WHEN he might call. I sort of resent being tethered to the thing, but other people seem to love theirs. How many times have I seen people in the grocery store, phone in hand: "Do you want French cut green beens or regular green beans? Del Monte or the store brand? Oh, look, they are buy-one-get-one-free! Should I get more than one?" What the hell do these people do when they have to make a REAL decision in life BY THEMSELVES? It's green beans. Pick a can. It makes me crazy in part because I am one of those people always answering questions that people on the cell phone are actually asking the person on the other end of the line. Then, when somebody in the store really DOES ask me a question, I find myself asking: "Are you talking to me?". I swear this phrase is probably now used in the grocery store more than in the New Jersey mafia. It has become the grocery store equivalent of: "Can you hear me now?".

My other two requirements for a cell phone are that it holds a charge AND, this is the most important, I can figure-out how to use it with a minimum of effort. I first worked on computers in the late 80's and occasionally over think current technology -- I think it is more difficult than it actually is. The truth of the matter is if I can set-up a blog on my own a drunk monkey can do it. However, I lack the patience for figuring out just what the little pictures on the cell phone mean. NOTHING comes with written instructions of any value any more. They just expect you to start pushing buttons like the aforementioned drunk monkey and see what happens. I lived in the age when pressing the wrong button on a computer could crash the thing FOREVER. I developed a reasonable respect for computers and learned to refrain from just willy-nilly pushing keys. The DMPB (drunk monkey pushing buttons) school of learning makes me nervous. I fear calling Lapland by accident and getting charged for it. Bottom line: I would not get a new phone unless I HAD to because I would have to learn how to use it. Yes, I am that lazy. However, bazillions of people were standing in line for hours to get this NEW cell phone. Since they already make phones that vibrate, I can't imagine what a cell phone could possibly do that could be SO much better.

This week our land line crapped-out at a most inconvinient time, so I was grateful to have a cell phone. I just don't get why people are so throughly obsessed with cell phones. To me they are a necessary evil -- like tampons or something. Nice to have, and maybe you do need it, but what is the big deal? Did it come in pink?