Owner of 2 Cell Phones…Master of None

My cell phones are in the possession of my daughters who aren’t rich enough to be trusted by the phone companies.

One of my phones is in Montreal and one is here at home except when my daughter is out which is rather often lately. I’ve never operated my phones, or at least I haven’t until Sunday night when my youngest lent me my phone for the first time.

Sunday night was the first time I actually found myself needing a cell phone. Elizabeth and a friend would be visiting another friend in the hospital. They wanted to be picked up when they were finished visiting but didn’t know when that would be.

Marty and I would be at a church meeting. So, we arranged that Elizabeth would text us from her friend’s phone. (As a jobless high school student, she can only afford the texting plan.) Then we would text her back on her/my phone to let her know when we could get there.

“The keys are so tiny…how do you press the right one.”

“No, mom don’t use you nail…use the pad of your finger.”

We came up with a simple plan. I would simply text K and a number, the number of minutes it would take us to get to the meeting spot of her choice.

As insurance she gave Marty a lesson as well. She thought he might be less cell-phone challenged. I don’t know why. His fingers are fatter than mine.

By the end of our church meeting, we hadn’t had any action from the phone. I checked the screen. Just then the message came in.

I clicked on the message area. I typed in the K. Then the screen changed. I don’t know why it changed. I didn’t know how to get back the message. I pushed the few buttons she had showed me and several others as well. The screen kept changing.

While I was doing this Marty was doing his part leading me to the car and driving us to the hospital.

The text message didn’t reappear. When we were about five minutes from our destination my daughter sent another text. “Where are you?” 

Now I had a new starting point. I gingerly pressed the K, changed the keypad to numerical with two clicks on the number icon and then a 5. SEND. Oh the joy of success.

Five minutes later the girls were in the car. “How come it took you so long to return my message?”

“The message disappeared. I was working on getting it back.”

“That took 10 minutes!”