ON THE HIGHWAY BETWEEN HOLBROOK AND PAYSON, Ariz. — You’ve heard already about my addiction to my cell phone.
I’m about to tell you about another discovery my wife and I have made about this annoying device.
It has a Global Positioning System, which is good.
My wife programmed the GPS to guide us to our destination in Mesa, Ariz. Her cell phone, which is identical to mine, charted a route to our destination. It gave us the road directions and posted an estimated time of arrival, just like the other GPS devices we own.
Then it started beeping at us — or, more to the point, at me.
Why the beeping noise? The phone knew how fast I was driving and was beeping at me, the driver, to remind me that I was exceeding the speed limit. Not by a lot, mind you. If the speed limit on the highway was 65 mph, and I was traveling at 66 mph, four loud beeps went off.
This phone not only is smart, it’s damn smart. So smart, in fact, that it’s smartness annoyed the daylights out of me as we made our way through some gorgeous mountainous Arizona countryside.
I’ve noted already that I haven’t yet gotten acquainted with all the “apps” available for use on my cell phone. My wife, who keeps insisting she isn’t very tech-savvy, actually understates her expertise with these devices. She’s much better at finding various uses for the cell phone than I do.
I appreciated her finding the GPS in her cell phone. I do not appreciate the smart-alecky device reminding me with all those beeps that it’s watching me like a hawk.
I have successfully resisted the constant urging to upgrade to a smartphone. Not only am I constantly bombarded by commercial influences but I have to weather the looks of pity aimed at me when I admit to owning a flip phone.
I recently asked for a sales flyer at Sam’s. The girl at the service desk informed me that they had run out but that all I had to do was download the app to my phone.
When I showed her my phone, she gasped and took a step backward. It was almost as if my “primitive” device was somehow dangerous. After she regained her composure, she awarded me with one of the aforementioned looks of pity and I set out in search of a discarded example of an actual sales flyer.
Trees everywhere were nervous as I sought the remains of one of their cousins, cleverly decorated with ink in useful patterns. I found a forlorn piece of paper that looked suspiciously like a sales flyer lying on the floor next to an idle checkout so I fished my reading glasses out of my pocket to determine if it was in fact the prize I was seeking.
It occurred to me then that I would have had to use the same reading glasses to look at a smartphone app. Damn the luck! When I bent over to retrieve the object of my search, I heard a distinct beep. I staggered backward until I ran into a shopping cart. It was then that I realized that I had not stumbled into another dimension. It was the scanner at the next register that had issued the distinct beep.
I bought a hot dog and went home.
As I ate my delicious hot dog, I mused over the inconveniences that are suffered by owners of smart phones. Monthly bills, confusing noises, not-so-user-friendly procedures to fully utilize the phone’s potential, etc.
I am not so sure that I will maintain my determination to keep my flip phone. Holy 1980’s Batman!