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 21st
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 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. . . .”
