The young man at the cellphone store didn’t mean to poke fun at my wife and me when he said, “Welcome to 2013” as we walked out of the place with our new cellphones in hand.

I turned to him and said I’m still stuck in the 1970s. We all laughed.

But with that, we’ve made the leap, purchasing a couple of “smart phones” that will do all kinds of things — a fraction of which we’ll likely use. But the stuff that’s included with these devices will be helpful.

I’ve appreciated the advice, recommendations and offers of help from my friends who’ve responded to an earlier blog post about the leap we were about to make. One of my sisters advised me against purchasing a smart phone, saying that “flip phones rock.” Sorry, sis. We made the leap.

We went with a Windows phone setup. I don’t need to explain this to most of the people in my life. They know what it is.

I will explain, though, that the purchase of the phones was every bit as complicated as I feared it would be. All the calling plans, data plans, texting plans, billing options, up-front phone cost variations were enough to give me a headache. And they did.

The sales rep who greeted us is a nice young man. We advised him up front of this truth: We are simple people who are not fluent in techno-speak. Our sons know this language; we don’t. “Explain this to me like I’m a 5-year-old,” I implored him, before backing off that request with the realization that a 5-year-old would understand all the jargon associated with 21st-century telecommunications. My wife then advised the young man to “talk to us like the old people we are.”

Well, the learning curve is a steep one for my wife and me. But this is part of life, I reckon. That curve will start to straighten out in due course, hopefully sooner rather than later.

You may keep praying for us.