This is what happens when technology strikes at home.
Late last week my mother comes to me in a slight panic. It wasn’t hysterical panic, the type of concern panic. She hand me her cell phone and say, “I don’t know what I did.”
No of course my mother thinks I have ESP and I think I automatically know what’s wrong with her phone. Her phone has to be over 5 years old as it still says Cingular on it and I know for a fact that she got it along with my Dad when AT&T became Cingular.
I asked, “What’s wrong with it.”
She replied, “It…it…it…won’t work!”
I had a look of puzzlement on my face. She finally told me it won’t ring anymore and it will only vibrate. As I was looking at her phone I notice a dent in the front speaker and said that may be the cause. She just gave me that frustrated look like, “How come you can’t fix it?” Please, I am not a phone technician.
So, as I was at work Saturday, my iPhone made the usual, “Hey you got a text message” noise. It was my mom, which when my mom sends a text message from her phone it takes her about an hour to type her message.
She said, “Your father and I got iPhones.”
I replied “Really?” I didn’t believe it and here’s why.
I got my iPhone 3G in July on the day it came out and my sister ordered hers that weekend. We both love our phone and enjoy those apps that we can download from the iTunes app store. My mom liked stealing my sisters phone to play the bubble wrap game. She would sit there for an hour or so pounding on the 3.5” screen popping those bubbles trying to fill the high score list. It was like a mission for her.
My sister and I for the longest time could tell she wanted and iPhone and we said on several occasions to go get one. They response from her and even so more from my father was, “They are too expensive.” Plus they would always yell at us that we are always playing with our phones. So you can see why I didn’t believe her.
I shot back a text message saying, “I thought they ‘cost too much’!” She replied, “They other were too ESP.” Yes, she wrote ESP, or should I say the iPhone corrected EXP to ESP. Oh she’s got a lot to learn. Apparently the “Half-off LG phones was a crock. Even with a $100 credit the cheapest phone was $170, which surprisingly is what my co-worker told me when he was looking for a new phone and he picked up his new AT&T phone at Radio Shack for a better price.
So when I got home I saw both my parents on the couch with their iPhones out taping away. Then came the barrage of questions. “How do you do search the internet,” “Where do I do…etc.”
I looked at them while they asked me question after question and said,” Why do you need those phones? All you ever do is sit there and play on those phones. There is nothing special those phones do, who needs them? They cost too much, the plans are expensive and they make you lazy.” I just got stares from them and I just said, “Yeah that’s what you sounded like the past 6 months.” To which they replied, “Shut up.”
They waited until the next day to sync their phone to iTunes and I had to supervise so they, “Did it right.” I told them to just plug the phone into their USB port to sync it. But no I had to stand there while my dad wouldn’t listen to a thing I told him and my mom just yelled at him about that as he kept repeating, “I got it, I got it. Relax.”
So last night I went to bed as, for some reason, I was pretty beat, which was probably because of the weather. When it’s crappy outside I just feel tired. There was a knock at the door. It was my mother. I open the door and she is holding her iPhone up and says, “I did something to it.” I look at her phone and it has the picture of the earth with the USB cord and says please sync to iTunes. I look at her and say, “Sync it to iTunes and you’ll be fine.” To which I got sad puppy dog eyes and a, “Can’t you fix it?”
I just rolled my eyes and told her to sync to iTunes. She finally did and all was well.
No I know many of you will think, “Oh give your parents a break they are not use to all this technology.” That would be all well and good until I tell people how old my parents are, 47, which people look at me and go, “Oh.” Plus my dad is a computer programmer, but sometimes lacks common sense on the smallest things like my sister, but that’s another story for another day.
So now my whole family has an iPhone and I know I will be getting at least 3 phone calls today about something. I put the over under at 2 though.
Anyone want to take those odds?
