I used to laugh at older folks who got in such a tizzy about cell phones or computers. 

Being a “tweener,” I came along on sort of the tail end of technology and experienced things like floppy disks and such when I was a new teacher.  Earlier than that, as a high school student of the 1980s it had been a treat to sit in the “electric row” for a week in typing class. Before that, we learned to type on manual numbers.

I don’t think they have had a typing class in school for many years.

But I fancied myself a quick study when it came to technology, and strutted around for many years during my teaching career, thinking I was the cat’s meow.

But none of that prepared me for the nightmare of getting a new cell phone. We travelled to the cell phone store yesterday, since we had decided it was time for our youngest to have a better phone. In the meantime, Michelle and I thought it might be a good idea to upgrade our own cell phones. 

If you really asked us, we would tell you there wasn’t anything wrong with our current phones and we were getting along just fine. But, we live in a society where everyone is convinced they need upgrades and refurbishing and new stuff.

Have you been to a cell phone store lately? If it is one like ours, it also handles internet and television and other things. Therefore, it’s this huge store with room for 800 people to wait in line, yet there are three or four workers ready to wait on you. You walk in the  door and click a couple of buttons on an iPad, telling the iPad what you want to do.  

Oh, you want help with your iPhones? OK, take a seat, we will be with you in around six hours. Your name comes up on a list on a huge screen. You watch your name move up the list at a snail’s pace and it’s as exciting as watching paint dry.

We were fortunate enough to have some good conversations while there.  You can meet some entertaining people at cell phone stores.

When we first went in, we were 10th in line and waited around 30 minutes to talk to a live person. The lady, a nice and enthusiastic person, excitedly lined our daughter up with a pretty blue cell phone and got her set up quickly. She gave Michelle a purple one and assumed I wanted the last one in the bunch, a black one.  

Black would match my mood after the ordeal unfolded.

It took a long time to transfer data from our old phones to the new, but everything seemed to be going well until we tried to erase data from the old phones.  Mine went fine, and I’m sure it’s because I had little data. Michelle’s phone, just like a difficult female, would not cooperate. The phone locked up and we had to leave the store and return an hour later.  Being resourceful, we went home and changed clothes, and decided to have dinner out after the second cell phone store visit of the day.  

But the second visit didn’t produce favorable results.  We had issues with Apple IDs and the phone locking up for hours this time, and ended up taking our old phone home with a promise to return the next day; you see, we’d traded the old one in, sort of like a used car. 

Our excited sales lady wasn’t as excited to see us a second time as she was getting off work in half an hour.

We did have a nice dinner out, though.

When I got home, I finagled around and got the old phone figured out enough that I did the factory reset by myself.

Apple owes me a small salary.

In the meantime, Michelle’s new phone had a mysterious email on it that had never been associated with our Apple ID, and after going back to the store the next day, we found out we’d have to come back home and call the Apple reps ourselves.

As I left, I told the sales lady we’d spent hours with the night before that we were leaving and that we would miss her.  

I don’t think she thought I was funny.

So, we did call the Apple people. We were on staticky hold for about 25 minutes before probably the most helpful person in the world came on. 

She actually did a screen share using my phone and could see Michelle’s phone as well as our laptop. She used little red arrows floating on my phone to show me what button to push.  We pushed buttons, downloaded things, and got a reset going on Michelle’s persnickety phone. 

The kind lady on the phone, who we could understand very well, said she thought we were on a good enough track that we could hang up with her. She gave us a cheery goodbye and hung up as we watched the phone finish its restore with a few seconds to go.

Then, the screen went blank. We started the process again, and the phone actually froze this time. We called back and reached another kind lady who told us she couldn’t help us.  She couldn’t screen share and give us any helpful arrows to follow. She didn’t giggle or sympathize with us.  She was kind, but she told us what we didn’t want to hear: we’d have to go to a store to get the matter fixed.

Why have I bored you with the dull details of this cell phone debacle? It is part apology for laughing at technically challenged people. It is part warning to have all of your passwords and emails and everything together before you go to the cell phone store.  

It is also a dissertation as to why Michelle and Mark will eventually go completely nuts. We are frazzled at a problem that shouldn’t be this hard.

You read it here first in case you see the men in white coats carrying us away.

As I write this, the problem is not solved. We are both wishing for simpler times when there were rotary dialed phones and notes written on pencil and paper.  

Are you with us?

Our teenager, happily oblivious, lounges in the recliner texting friends and sending out her new phone number.  

We glare at her from afar.