My Tech by Bonnie Le Hamilton

I recently bought my first smartphone. I can give a lot of reason why I’ve waited so long, but the simple matter of it is that I didn’t NEED one. I could make and receive calls or texts; I didn’t need some fancy gadget full of all sorts bells and whistles. And you have to admit those things aren’t cheap!

I had heard of lots of helpful or fun apps that you can only get on a smartphone, but I figured I’ve lived this long without them, I can manage longer, which was fine, until a couple of weeks ago when one of the apps I have on my reader stopped working. I contacted the company telling them the problem and they informed me that the app is no longer supported on readers.

Thank you, so much.

This wouldn’t have bothered me, except the app in question is one I use all the time, since its entire use is to supply people with the phone numbers of every other member of our church living in the area. (For those of you don’t know, we divide our congregations by area, so the app tells you the names and numbers of the members in your assigned area.) Its very helpful, and again, I use it a lot, therefore, suddenly, I needed a smartphone.

I went through something similar when I finally got a computer, internet service, a reader, and a cell phone. In each and every case I didn’t get them until those items became something I needed, not just wanted. There’s just no sense in spending money I can’t really afford on something I don’t even need. I’m actually like that about pretty much everything.

I’ll also cut bills if its something I can live without, ergo, I no longer have a landline and I recently got rid of my Netflix membership. If I’m not using it, why am I paying for it? That’s just a waste of money. Not smart.

The funny thing is, I finally got a reader because of another very handy app supplied by my church which is in and of itself a whole library of church literature, way more than we generally carry with us when we go to church, but it did include the ones we need for church, so when my health got to the point that I couldn’t carry all those books, having a reader was a Godsend, I could have all those books and more with me every Sunday.

I do use my reader for more than just that one app, but that is why I got it, and still have it. Having it has been very useful, especially while sitting in waiting rooms. Though right now I’m not all that sure about how useful a smartphone is, I’m still trying to get the hang of it.

And you can ask Konnie, the other day, I called her to get my niece’s phone number, and I kept accidentally disconnecting the call like three times. More recently I accidentally dialed a friend of mine by hitting the wrong spot on the screen. Actually, that’s how I did it those three times with Konnie. I’ll figure it out, eventually.

Then again, I’ve heard of, and even read stories about, people accidentally calling other people because their phone was in their pocket, so my problems are probably not that uncommon either, though it might make an interesting scene or two, maybe.

But let’s face it, the things we consider common and everyday will one day be unusual and unknown, like kids today who don’t know how to use a rotary dial phone. I saw a video about that on Facebook a while back.

I couldn’t stop laughing at those kids picking up the handset, then putting it back in the cradle before they dialed the phone! For those of us who have used such a phone, we knew what they were doing wrong. I actually thought it was pay back. After all these years of all these youngsters laughing at our inability to use tech, we could finally laugh at their inability to use the grandfather of their tech!

But if science keeps advancing, one day their grandchildren will be laughing at their inability to use the newest gadget, but those same grandkids will be lost trying to use what we have now. Sort of like that scene in Star Trek Four where Scotty at first tried to talk straight into the monitor then into the mouse. That still makes me laugh, too.

Where writing goes, those sorts of things will always be funny.

Happy writing everyone!