More Child of the Novelist than Child of the Novelty

I'm in the process, perhaps, this week, of getting a new cellphone as I've taken less than good care of my current trusty and trusted companion and it's tottering on the brink of exhaustion. In the autumn of both my life and in a year that could end today and I'd not miss for a moment, the prospect of shopping for a new smartphone does not set my pulse racing but there was a time when I and the world were young and nearly everything was new(ish). 

I don't remember those times, or for that matter writing this over a decade ago, I called it:

Paging Mr. Wizard to the White Courtesy Phone

I no longer ever go anywhere without my smartphone, as promised by my son when I got it. I, who went for weeks without even knowing where my cellphone ever was (hint: in the cubbie where we put the opened mail in our kitchen to the left of the backdoor), now is more likely to nearly forget my wallet than my newest accessory.

And with good reason! My smartphone, probably like yours, has superpowers, if you watch enough of the TV commercials and take a three-credit evening course two nights a week for the rest of your life, "Zen and your Blackberry Tour" or some other such folderol, if only you knew how to harness them. 

That it still takes me forever to figure out how to answer the phone when someone calls me (originally, of course, the whole point behind having a cell phone), is ignored as I struggle to download some Mad Ap that will make me four inches taller, tell me the weather in Dubrovnik or where I can find the nearest gasoline station (that giant Exxon sign that brings this fair city light just isn't enough of a dead giveaway).

My smartphone can make movies, take pictures (of course!) record conversations if anyone ever talks to me (an untested capability), and allows me to listen to Slacker and surf the web-among other things (the rest I don't think I understand). 

I've even learned how to 'text', not like the kids can, of course. I'm too old for that and you have to take Pilates for Thumbs to get the full effect. And tell me there's nothing better than watching full episodes of a show I missed watching on the TV in my living room instead of on the one and a half-inch diagonal display on my phone. The Marconi Mafia should have lived long enough to see their handiwork. Yes indeed, to a man with a hammer the whole world is a nail

I don't really understand how I can 'miss' phone calls because I wasn't ideally located in the coverage area or was in a 'dead zone' (who came up with that turn of phrase?) but I can still get text messages. My son, who has his patience, I assume, from his foster father as I had none to give him, has explained the concept to me at least a dozen times. And except that I never understand it, he does a good job of it. 

To me, it ranks up there with the mystery of the Thermos bottle. It keeps hot things hot and cold things cold. How does it know the difference?
-bill kenny