I know a lot of people who change out their cell phones the minute they get that "eligible for upgrade" message from their cell phone provider. Being raised while dinosaurs still walked the earth with the basic theme of our lives being "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", I'm not that type of person. In fact, it almost took an act of Congress to get me to start using a cell phone in the first place.
My husband was the first one to carry a cell phone in our house. It was a work requirement, as he needed to be able to call into the office when they paged him from wherever he might be. In those early days, the reception might not be great, as there weren't that many towers up, but as soon as he got a signal, he would call through.
Then, as technology expanded and he got more comfortable with having that phone attached to his hip, he started checking in with me on his way home, as I was a stay-at-home mom and might not have made it out to the grocery store with the two kids for such things as milk that we might need to make supper....
And I was sometimes taking the kids to the playground or to the library, so sometimes when he called, he got the answering machine that we'd purchased second hand - the one that would sometimes let you know there was a message, but sometimes it didn't, so I would occasionally not call him back at the right time.
When the kids got old enough for us to afford to put the youngest in day care while the oldest was at school, I went back to work. Having been out of the job field for a while, I went to work for a temp agency, and I wasn't always given the phone number of the place I was temping before leaving that first morning at a new location. Calls were made to the home phone, but we still had that "iffy" answering machine, and it didn't always respond when I was calling in to check messages before heading home. There were days when I would arrive at the day care to find out that my husband had already picked up the kiddo, and would get home to find him angry because he had been trying to reach me to let me know that he and the kids had made chocolate milk as a snack when they got home and we needed milk. There were times when the car broke down and I was unable to reach him to let him know that I was running late.
After a point, my having a cell phone began to be an important part of our discussions.
Being the type of person who will research things before I spend my hard-earned money, I was soon finding that there was no way, on our budget, for me to afford the "monthly fee" type cell phone, so I started picking up the "buy your minutes on a card" version. This worked rather well for a long time, as I very rarely actually use my phone, so therefore, I could spend $100 for a 500 minute prepaid card that gave me a full year to use up my time....and I was rolling over minutes when the expiration date neared.
Then our son, who had started a monthly plan instead of getting a land line while he was married, went through a divorce. Since he didn't want to turn off his only phone, he offered me the phone he'd gotten for free for his wife when he bought the plan. Giving up the flip phone "buy as you go" phone for my very first IPhone, I felt like I had stepped into the real world. My husband and daughter were soon added to the "family plan", followed by my son's new girlfriend.
I purchased a Tigger cover to protect my phone, and, since I still rarely used it, it didn't get much in the way of wear and tear. Not so some of the other phones in our family plan. Each time my opportunity to upgrade my phone came about, someone else in the plan had damaged their phone and needed the new phone more than I did. I gave up my upgrades more than once, with that "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" adage I had grown up with still ringing in my ears.
Then, yesterday, I dropped my ancient IPhone, which my co-workers had been teasing me was a total dinosaur and needed to be replaced. The screen, despite having survived many such drops in the past, shattered. Heart-broken, I made the appointment to meet my son at the AT&T store to trade up.
I've just finished the transfer of information from my old IPhone to my new HTC Desire. Tongue firmly in cheek, I changed the name of the phone from "HTC Desire 610" to "Debi's Desire". It seemed very apropos for a romance writer to have that as a phone.
But I'm going to miss my little Tigger....
We had so many years together, watching the other dinosaurs die out....
My husband was the first one to carry a cell phone in our house. It was a work requirement, as he needed to be able to call into the office when they paged him from wherever he might be. In those early days, the reception might not be great, as there weren't that many towers up, but as soon as he got a signal, he would call through.
Then, as technology expanded and he got more comfortable with having that phone attached to his hip, he started checking in with me on his way home, as I was a stay-at-home mom and might not have made it out to the grocery store with the two kids for such things as milk that we might need to make supper....
And I was sometimes taking the kids to the playground or to the library, so sometimes when he called, he got the answering machine that we'd purchased second hand - the one that would sometimes let you know there was a message, but sometimes it didn't, so I would occasionally not call him back at the right time.
When the kids got old enough for us to afford to put the youngest in day care while the oldest was at school, I went back to work. Having been out of the job field for a while, I went to work for a temp agency, and I wasn't always given the phone number of the place I was temping before leaving that first morning at a new location. Calls were made to the home phone, but we still had that "iffy" answering machine, and it didn't always respond when I was calling in to check messages before heading home. There were days when I would arrive at the day care to find out that my husband had already picked up the kiddo, and would get home to find him angry because he had been trying to reach me to let me know that he and the kids had made chocolate milk as a snack when they got home and we needed milk. There were times when the car broke down and I was unable to reach him to let him know that I was running late.
After a point, my having a cell phone began to be an important part of our discussions.
Being the type of person who will research things before I spend my hard-earned money, I was soon finding that there was no way, on our budget, for me to afford the "monthly fee" type cell phone, so I started picking up the "buy your minutes on a card" version. This worked rather well for a long time, as I very rarely actually use my phone, so therefore, I could spend $100 for a 500 minute prepaid card that gave me a full year to use up my time....and I was rolling over minutes when the expiration date neared.
Then our son, who had started a monthly plan instead of getting a land line while he was married, went through a divorce. Since he didn't want to turn off his only phone, he offered me the phone he'd gotten for free for his wife when he bought the plan. Giving up the flip phone "buy as you go" phone for my very first IPhone, I felt like I had stepped into the real world. My husband and daughter were soon added to the "family plan", followed by my son's new girlfriend.
I purchased a Tigger cover to protect my phone, and, since I still rarely used it, it didn't get much in the way of wear and tear. Not so some of the other phones in our family plan. Each time my opportunity to upgrade my phone came about, someone else in the plan had damaged their phone and needed the new phone more than I did. I gave up my upgrades more than once, with that "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" adage I had grown up with still ringing in my ears.
Then, yesterday, I dropped my ancient IPhone, which my co-workers had been teasing me was a total dinosaur and needed to be replaced. The screen, despite having survived many such drops in the past, shattered. Heart-broken, I made the appointment to meet my son at the AT&T store to trade up.
I've just finished the transfer of information from my old IPhone to my new HTC Desire. Tongue firmly in cheek, I changed the name of the phone from "HTC Desire 610" to "Debi's Desire". It seemed very apropos for a romance writer to have that as a phone.
But I'm going to miss my little Tigger....
We had so many years together, watching the other dinosaurs die out....
i'm the same way. i got my first smartphone over three years ago (i think), a samsung galaxy s2 and people are constantly telling me that i need to upgrade it. but it still works and i've grown attached and unless it completely dies, i can't see myself getting a new phone any time soon.
ReplyDelete