My cell phone is an absolute piece of junk. It overheats, the buttons don’t work, and the dang screen tends to turn to funky, psychedelic colors. Worse yet, it abruptly hangs up on callers, tends to power down for no apparent reason, and has been known to call China on a whim.
I’d firmly contend that there’s nothing worse than texting my memoirs (one tends to do that when one is a writer) and have the phone go to sleep without so much as inquiring whether or not it should save a draft.
Can you just sense my pain?
“Why don’t you just go and get a new one?” folks often ask as I’m cursing the device. Simply put, I can’t get a new one because I gave our eldest and wise-cracking son, Vernon, my upgrade.
Oblivious to the new technology that was looming on the horizon, I was happy with my phone at the time. It was still taking calls, sending texts and staying alive through an entire conversation.
I did not realize what I had sacrificed with my upgrade until Vernon came strutting through the kitchen with the much-coveted iPhone 4S. For those of you not in the know, the iPhone 4S is the Cadillac of phones and the S stands for Siri, who is nothing short of having a brain for a sidekick.
Who among us couldn’t use one of those?
While I was trying to find which calendar I wrote an appointment on, Vernon was picking up his hi-tech device and telling it to remind him of an obligation in May. As I was setting the timer on the stove and then going to places where I couldn’t hear it, Vernon was telling Siri to buzz him in 10 minutes to awaken him from a quick snooze.
Siri reminded Vernon to get a haircut, trim his nails and that if he wanted to keep God happy, he’d better get to Mass.
Meanwhile, I was in desperate need of something to remind me why I went to the living room on a dead run.
Oh, how that Vernon rubbed it in. Take, for example, our recent vacation when I asked him to hand me a map from the back seat. He blinked several times, appeared to be in a state of shock and then shook his head as if to get the sound of my request out of his ears.
“Hand you a what?” he asked and made it painfully obvious that he was afraid to hear the answer.
“The map,” I repeated, as I wondered what the big deal was.
“Why,” he said slowly so as to take it all in, “would you need a map?”
“Umm,” I asked with sarcasm, “to look up directions?”
After I told him the directions I was seeking, he held his iPhone at arm’s length and said, “I need directions.”
Siri responded, and I’m not making this up, “Here you go, Master. Would you like me to navigate?” “Yes, I would,” Master Vernon responded as he placed his navigating phone on the dash for all to see.
Then he shook his head again, looked at his younger brothers and for the sake of entertainment, imitated me as he mocked, “Hand me the map.”
The real kicker came last month when Vernon was home for a visit. In the middle of texting my mother about something that I’m sure was crucial, my phone again powered down and refused to turn back on.
“I despise this piece of junk,” I said to no one in particular for what might have been the hundredth time in less than a week.
“Why not just go in for an upgrade?” Vernon sincerely inquired.
Not believing those words came out of his mouth, I replied back with fury, “Uh, because I gave away my upgrade.”
“Who?” Vernon asked with big eyes and genuine ignorance. “Who would you give your upgrade to?”
“You!”
Now, one would think that Vernon would look at his mother and her clunker of a squawk box and feel a little bit of guilt, if not sadness, for the situation he had put me in. Instead he simply responded, “You mean we have no upgrades available? How am I supposed to get the iPhone 5?”
“I don’t know!” I promptly fired back. “Maybe you should ask Siri.”
Lori Clinch is the mother of four sons and the author of the book “Are We There Yet?” She may be reached by sending an email to [email protected].