A Phone Upgrade and Driving Lessons

My sister, Lin, gave me a belated birthday present … an iPhone. We wondered if we were not the last people on Earth to have acquired one. Everywhere we go, we see people attached to their phones. Since we travel from country to country, we usually use a small Samsung and buy a new SIM card for it in each country … that is, if we feel we need a phone. When you don't know anyone and nobody knows you, it's kind of pointless to have a phone.

The Samsung is quite a utilitarian phone. One young person asked how old it was … he'd never seen one like it. Really? It's only four years old! We can use it make phone calls and send/receive texts. It's not a flashlight nor a camera and we can't access the internet with it. Sending texts is a chore. It's the old A-B-C variety where you scroll through and find the letter you need, click on it, then proceed to the next letter. There's no auto-correct (which I think is a plus), nor suggestions for how you might like to finish a word or sentence. But … it does make phone calls.

David has pretty much claimed the new phone. After all, only one person can use it at a time. He's the gadget guy. Lin has given us a brief tutorial on its operation and David's been working his way through all its many features, uploading our Yahoo address book, entering new phone numbers, etc. I've managed to answer the phone a couple of times and I've turned on the flashlight ... accidentally.

Along with the new phone came a new phone number which, of course, we haven't managed to memorize yet. Someone asked for the new number the other day and then had to show me how to find the number on the phone. We usually tape the number on the back of the phone, but David hadn't gotten around to doing it yet. We have a new number in each country, and we've never been anywhere long enough to learn our phone number in one country before moving on to a new one.

Whenever we're away for awhile and return to the USA, we're always surprised by what's new and trendy. For instance, we just learned that McDonalds now serves breakfast all day long. (Thank goodness, no need to rush to get there before 10:30.) Also, we can now monitor our phone calls on our TV (if we had one). I can set reminders, set up schedules and do lots of other things with the new iPhone … most of which we haven't discovered yet. 2016 will certainly be a year of exploration.

Having the iPhone has eliminated all sorts of frustration and it was indeed a splendid gift. Now we've just got to learn how to drive it. And I'm sure that in a few weeks, we'll no longer be able to function without it.