cel phone blues
People would point and laugh. Children would start crying. Dates would quietly excuse themselves to the restroom, never to return -- after catching a glimpse of my nearly 5 inch x 2 inch, slightly beaten up QUALCOM 2762 cel phone. Purchased in 1999, and the height of technology at the time, this green-screen dot-matrix beauty has served me like a loyal friend. Only after a glorious tour of duty in excess of six years, did the battery finally start to go, and let me tell you, it was hard to acknowledge the deteriorating health of my beloved QUALCOM 2762. Finally (but what felt suddenly) in May this year, I looked down to my friend to make a call to find out where the hell my ultimate frisbee game was being played, and read the words 'Service Required' on the green, dot-matrix display. As a single tear emerged from the welling pool in my eyes, I felt gratitude toward the skilled makers of my QUALCOM 2762 for their thoughtfulness. "When the time comes", I imagined them having said, "let's make it gentle". Service Required. I pulled the car over and stared at it for a few moments, late for my game, but feeling the need to be with these feelings of sadness, regret for not having better prepared (though you can never really be prepared), and also.. Fear.
Having no illlusions that the 'Service Required' on my QUALCOM 2762 would likely require parts for which the molds had long been recycled, and require technicians who had long ago gone to pasture, I was faced with the sudden reality that if I wanted to have a cel phone, I would be forced to enter the world of stupid, little, flimsy, hard to hold, wimpy little piece-of-shit cel phones that the world somehow allowed to become the norm.
That's right, I let this change happen, watching friends over the years 'upgrade' only to see these 'new and improved' little pieces of junk crammed full of idiotically ridiculous 'ring tones', that fall apart and smash when dropped from higher than 4 inches. And now that the pollution of this progress is in my own back yard, and I've been forced to endure bus rides scored with midi versions of Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me by Elton John and theme from MacGyver, I find myself suddenly taking the direction of technological progress seriously.
(Alright, I took it seriously before, but still..)
It makes me wonder, who's driving this ship? Luckily a friend offered up her 'old' phone to me as she had recently upgraded. I was excited, perhaps I'd get something like my beloved QUALCOM 2762. But no, even this old Samsung is so small it falls out of my pocket, and I can't get the goddamn thing to shut up. Whisper Mode, Vibrate mode, all turned on, yet, twice TWICE, during a job interview yesterday, the damn thing erupts into song to let me know of the message i had recieved .. two days earlier (It seems to like to continually remind me of an unheard message, no matter how much time passes. I think it's wanting to remind me of it's neediness for attention.)
Perhaps I'm just alone in my desire for good old durability and reliability, for something you can hold in your hand that doesn't feel like your answering a pack of gum, that does what it's told and doesn't have an identity crisis (am i a camera? am i a phone? am i an mp3 player?).
When I went to the mall kiosk to try to purchase a car-charger for the two year old Samsung (unsuccesfully of course), I asked the guy if he knew if I could find a manual for it online. He looked up from what he was doing and laughed, "Dude, you don't need a manual". I suddenly have empathy for my mom all those years trying to figure out how to program the VCR. "Come on mom, it's easy." Uh-huh.
