One Ringy Dingy

By

My husband dumped his cell phone in the ocean last week while kayaking. Actually he was taking a photo of an incredible plate-sized jellyfish just off the port side of his kayak and he leaned over a wee bit past the line of fulcrum. Badda bing badda boom, he was swimming with the fishes. Fortunately not forever. He popped up gasping from the icy water, but as he surfaced his hand was holding up his cell phone. He looked like the scene from the original “Planet of the Apes” with the Statute of Liberty’s arm with hand clenching the torch coming out of the sea. My first thought was, “Oh no, his phone.” (I mean, first I thought…my poor husband, how can I help him, dang he looks cold, he better not pull me in too…and then–oh no, his phone.)

Next we found out there is no use in taking it to the phone shop and innocently saying, “Um it doesn’t work.” Those Doogie Howser aged techies flip out the battery and find a tiny pink spot and ask, “Fresh or salt water?”

Next we did do all that is recommended. Like a recipe, we rinsed it off with fresh water, put it in a bag of rice and waited 2 days for it to um, cure itself. Good news. The Internet and camera work. Bad news. The phone part was toast. Funny but when you have a three-in-one media device, you suddenly realize it is like owning an oven with a microwave on combo. One goes and it is a one-way trip to the landfill. Seems so unfair.

Fortunately he had cell phone insurance. I have cell phone insurance. A hundred bucks each for two years. Why, why do we have cell phone insurance? Because we like taking pictures with our phones and sending them to Facebook and that means the device is the price of my first car. And because, at least for me, I am bound to break or lose the fool thing. Like glasses I am destined to sit on this device, step on this device, wash it, dry it, drop it down a crack somewhere, douse it in the toilet, run it over, and leave it in an airport.

This may seem commonplace to the younger generation, but when I was growing up…cue Dana Carvey’s Saturday Night Live skit. “When I was a kid we had phones that were attached to the wall and you could only go 6 feet in any direction with them. And we all shared the same phone, all seven of us. And we never once dropped one single phone in a toilet. We never ran over a single phone and if you dropped it behind a cushion it had this cute little curly tail to pull it back up.”

And here is another thing about the good old rotary, cradle phones. You only bought one per household forever. Maybe in the early sixties your Mom bought a Princess phone to go with her bedroom, as long it was turquoise, powder blue, beige, or pink.

You did not replace your telephone as often as you change your mind. You didn’t replace anything in those days. You kept the same bicycle, tennis racquet, and bowling ball until you left home and donated them to a younger sibling.

So just about the time I learn 10% of what my newest device can do, someone deems it dumb and I have to learn a new device program. I remember when I got my first answering machine on a home line. My grandmother would call and the message from her would sound like this, “I don’t like these new-fangled things, I never know what to do so I am just going to hang up now.” Yeah, like that Gramma. I am so over these new-fangled things .

Sally Franz is a former stand-up comedian, motivational speaker, and radio host. She is a twice-divorced mother of two and a grandmother of three. Sally has a degree in gerontology and several awards for humor writing. She is the author of Scrambled Leggs: A Snarky Tale of Hospital Hooey
and The Baby Boomers Guide to Menopause.