The Family Communication Hub

I have a small confession to make, one which will pretty much brand me as a hypocrite.

I am now the owner of... a smartphone. A gen-u-wine, android-powered piece of evil that is supposed to make me hipper, brighter, tech-savvy and have whiter teeth. Ok, I threw that last one in.

I know in my first piece some months back, I branded myself as a reactionary and expressed contempt for these objects. I maintain my contempt, but the sad fact is, you almost can't get just a 'regular cell phone' today and my cell phone company wanted to charge me MORE for their non-Android phones, the one I could find at all. Ok, the conspiracy theorist in me, could go on about this for...well, how much time have you got? But, the truth is...like social media; I guess this is is just the way things are.

My first stirrings that I wasn't exactly a technophile came about two Christmases ago, when my niece, Persephone (names have been changed to protect the innocent) seeing my car pull in the driveway as I dutifully dragged myself to Christmas dinner, came running over to me in full shriek. Immediately, Norman Rockwell-esque images flooded my mind, and I was all warm inside, "My little niece...can't wait to see her Auntie!" As I opened the car door, a very different child confronted me, "Auntie, I got DS!". Neophyte that I am, and missing the oh-so-critical 'a'; I took a few steps back, starting to say, "I'm sorry you don't feel well, and I'm sure Mommy and Daddy will take you to the doctor and he'll make it all better..." when she thrusts this notebook-like object under my nose. "Look Auntie!", she says grasping a stylus in her hand like a secretary about to take dictation, "It's got games, I can go on the internet, see all my friends..." I'm thinking, 'she's 7, I mean, it's not like she needs the internet to send critical work emails, or to liaise with the home office.'
Which was nearly my reaction a few months later when she was given a laptop computer.  To put it in perspective, I was in my LATE 30's when I got my FIRST personal laptop computer.

So to put it mildly, I am a late bloomer when it comes to technology.

After my new device came, I took myself down to the store to have all of my pictures and contacts moved from my old and apparently so low-tech that the rep on the phone nearly laughed out loud when I gave him my model and serial numbers SIM card to my new more hipper and fashion-forward SIM. As part of the service, the cellular representative, who like all of the people in my life these days, probably was born the week that Family Ties had it's farewell episode, proceeded to give me a crash-course in all the things my 'droid could apparently do. It was a lot like when fast talker John Moschitta, Jr. aka 'The Micro Machine Man' used to run down all of the attributes of those amazing little shape-shifting toys in the space of a minute and a half or the weird unintelligible words of the auctioneer hawking cars at the Barrett-Jackson Auto Auction. That is, if Moschitta, Jr. or the auction-man also happened to speak very quickly in Greek, Swahili or Russian. "Okay folks, here you have your apps, your apps, swype, give me swype and you have your net, give me net, I say net access, net access, pinch it, pinch it and it gets smaller, smaller I say, give me smaller, spread your fingers, I say spread em, and it gets larger...give me larger"

As he droned on...I zoned out. My mind drifted to a happier place, before 'droids, I-Pods, MP3's, Tablet PC's, laptops, etc. I thought affectionately back to the days when my Mom carried a cell-phone the size of a masonary brick, it's long black plastic antenna protruding through the zipper of her purse. I thought back to my father's car which was equipped with an equally brick-like phone in a cradle housed in the console next to the driver's seat, the hands' free option that so dazzled my friends, press one button, 'beeeepp' connect with the microphone crouched in the window corner and he would transact business all the way to our school, a long wire-like antenna protruding from the roof of the car.

Back when the family communication hub consisted of a phone with a looonnng extension cord that let you walk all the way from the breakfast nook to the dining room and if you were nimble and determined enough to the living room sofa where you could sit down for an intimate conversation heard only by...well...everyone in the living room or the bedroom beyond. I used to love to wind myself in the cord and see how many revolutions it took to get free again. I think my record was 9. With a cell-phone you're too free and ambulatory, consequently you miss things. If I hadn't been wound up in the cord and trapped in the kitchen; I'd have missed the moment when our crazy, clumsy cat BJ while in the midst of a fight with another cat, missed his footing, tripped and flipped himself into the family swimming pool.

As for texting, in the 1990's with a houseful of people coming and going at different times, texting was a spot on the breakfast nook where a sheaf of scratch paper fashioned from cut-up backs of those pesky Val-Pak coupons and a chewed-up pencil resided. It was there you got all you needed to know, "We've gone to bed, please don't unplug the coffee maker, we're going out early in the morning, see you when we get back. Love, Mom". Important information like, "Jessie's staying over night, so you're sleeping on the couch, try not to wake the girls!" Or chores, "On your way home from school, could you please pick up a veggie for supper, cauliflower would be good or maybe green beans, NO LIMA BEANS, your sisters won't eat them!"

Yep, the good old reliable Family Communication Hub...for my money you can keep the droid...It'll never beat a coil-y phone cord and a chewed up pencil!