Showdown at Tech Town

Flip phones are like toddler toys- designed to break, quickly like plastic water guns. They are not very smart. And much like toy weapons, they still have a kind of small presence.

It is not the phones of course who are dumb, but the idiots like me who buy them. These tiny, plastic-like pieces of hayseed half the size of a playing card tend to slip through your fingers like a child’s marble, often sending the stupid thing flying; then the flip part frequently and continually deconstructs, eventually hanging precariously and piteously from one thread like a broken limb as you dolefully face the prospect of finding a Verizon store out there on the prairie, then spending the better part of a day. . . . It’s a crap shoot really, in terms of dependability.

On the other hand, smart phones do not render a user more intelligent although they do significantly increase the revenues of the savvy tech manufacturers who construct them to last just a might longer than the annoying flip phones, albeit at even crazier, more outrageous prices. These purchases are like risking the chance of losing big at poker when the dealer’s deck is stacked and loaded.

Let’s cut to the chase.

I am one of those who has hung on tenaciously- nay, heroically!- to my landline. I’ve not even succumbed to “Triple Play,” lacking as I do any faith whatsoever in the reliability of cable servers. But I do not like to leave the house completely unarmed. I’m a proud American and wear my flip phone arrogantly like a ten gallon hat or a Colt ’45.

Despite my yearnings to be alone at a campfire watching the stars with a dog named Shep and a steaming cup of java, living in the 21^st century I am forced to have a line of communication as mobile as a talking horse, a mechanism commonly and simply referred to as a “phone,” since a huge majority of the population relies entirely on this pony express. There is a clear rationale to this. What if we had not over-peopled the earth after all and destroyed every speck of greenery, then planted yet another Starbucks even in far reaches of the highest mountain in the Rockies? You just might find yourself one dreary midnight on that long, lonesome trail, far, far away from anyone who can help with that pesky flat tire and tired horse, just as a particularly mean hombre closes in from the nearby desert and surreptitiously pads his way towards you. . . . .

Unlikely? Perhaps. But better safe than sorry. It pays to be strapped, holstered, safely armed with a six shooter at the ready, prepared for the worst. No telling what’s out there in that untamed sagebrush.

And so there I was at the Verizon store, having phoned ahead to make sure they carried and had in stock the same brand of cheap, stupid phones that continually break. In line ahead of me were two compadres, each already being waited on by the two reps at the counter, everyone sitting on those impossibly high, uncomfortable stools. The place gave off the whiff of a Wild West barroom and you could hear a pin drop.

The first guy, who was approaching the elderly stage but still slick with a sardonic air, perhaps a retired rodeo rider or weekend golfer, was listening intently to the rep, who spoke to him like a horse whisperer. The second customer, a waiter from a nearby restaurant, could not understand why he had to pay the remaining balance on his now inoperative iphone, even though it had totally deconstructed like a palomino with a fractured leg and therefore was totally useless, and then immediately start making payments all over again on a new device. He was ready to call the sheriff and organize a posse.

Forty-five minutes later when my own turn came, of course they did not have the item I wanted that they had said was in stock. They did not even carry it in fact. The person who had erroneously given me this misinformation, twice (I had called again to make sure), or “mis-communicated” because she was a lazy, mean lout who refused to go back and look, already was gone for the day. My hand instinctively moved toward my hip and I was ready to kill. The manager assured me she would “speak to her.” Great.

But then the tide turned, and the lonesome stranger who was engaged in quiet, intense conversation with the first rep whirled around, pulled out his flip phone like Gary Cooper in High Noon, and offered it to me! He was sick of flip phones he said. It was unclear if he was moving on to another, fancier, shinier “device,” perhaps with a pearl handle, but for now he was gettin’ out of Tech Town. He’d had it with Laredo and was movin’ on.

He tipped his golfer’s hat, strode out of the store, jumped onto his Ford Bronco parked outside just as the meter maid was ambling threateningly down the street, and rode away into the sunset.

I gazed longingly out the door but the rep who was taking my order put his hand comfortingly on my shoulder and said, “He’ll be back. . . .”