Getting Along With My Smart-alecky Phone

          Well, I’ve had my smart-aleck phone for 7 months now, and I think we’ve come to terms with each other.  Sort of.  I’d describe it most like a teenager.  The trick is to get it to do what you want it to do without it knowing it was your idea.  Those of you who have or work with teenagers understand what I mean.  One wrong move and you’re sitting there wondering where you went wrong.  Don’t try to retrace your steps because you’ll never figure it out.  One time my friend sent me an e-mail with an attachment.  My phone simply refused to show it to me.  It said that it was opened, but I couldn’t see it.  I had to turn on my computer to see the image that she sent me.  Darn phone! Sometimes I stab at the screen and it takes 6 times before I open the app I want.  Sometimes I barely touch it when I’m picking it up and an app I never use pops up on the screen.  I’ve never put any music on it (I know, that’s one of the features that many people enjoy the most) since I prefer the radio and don’t like ear buds, yet every now and then when I pick it up a message appears that says “there is no music on this device”.  No kidding.  I do enjoy the camera feature, but it took me quite a while to figure it out, or make peace with it.  Sometimes I’d be taking a video instead of a still picture.  For the longest time I couldn’t figure out how to zoom, and couldn’t get the right setting for the flash thus giving me many very dark pictures juxtaposed with many ghostly looking images of my loved ones.  I almost have that figured out.  Although it seems like just when I think I’ve figured it out I realize that I don’t.  At least I’ve learned how to text, make calls, and retrieve voicemails.  God help me if I ever decide to put music on it!  Some things I just shouldn’t attempt.

The “ON” Button, Please

               Recently I borrowed my 23 year old daughter’s car.  It’s a pretty zippy little car into which she had installed a new radio when she first got it.  I remember my first car and its radio.  Turn the knob to “on”, adjust the volume with the same knob, and then turn it off with it.  So easy!  I could not figure out the radio in this car.  There was no “on” button.  There was a screen saver that told the time for a nano second every 30 hours or something, because I never once saw the time.  Thus I arrived at an appointment in a flustered state thinking I was late.  I was on time.  I tried at every stop light to figure out how to make some music come out of the speakers.  All I could find was an “off” button which I stabbed repeatedly thinking that perhaps the maker thought turning it off might be more important than knowing how to turn it on.  There were buttons with arrows, and letters, I think one said “source”.  Driving down the highway stabbing at buttons trying to get some music going in the little car; now that’s the way to get to an appointment!  This of course is just another incidence of my troubles with modern electronics.  I’m still learning the ins and outs of my smart aleck phone, and now this radio.  Thank goodness it’s not in my vehicle, which was in the garage for repairs the day I borrowed my daughter’s car.  Once my vehicle was ready for pick up my daughter drove me to the garage.  I told her of my trouble trying to turn on her radio.  With a mildly amused smirk she pointed to the proper button.  It was the one marked “source”.  If I sat in that car for a year I wouldn’t have ever guessed that was the one to turn on the radio.