The ringtone is like no other, sort of a jazzy Latin beat.  At this point I know most of my cellphone’s functions, including texting, setting the alarm, editing contacts, etc.  It’s a nameless, generic Verizon’s own phone, nothing special about it.  I have twenty or so contacts on my phone, mostly other people’s cell phones, and I don’t know any by heart, except my husband’s. Not even my two teen sons. They, of course, have much better phones than I do, with the complete keyboard, and no place I can see to speak into. You might think, intuitively, I could use their phones and/or check up on their texts, but so far, that is beyond me.  In terms of evolution, my phone and I are still in the dinosaur age.

I’ve had this phone about four years, coming up to the end of the contract. The battery is no longer holding a charge well, and has been replaced once, through Ebay — cause they’re not sold anywhere else, obsolete already. Do I want to replace it with the same thing? Not likely, At best, it’s a love/hate relationship between me and my cell phone. But there is absolutely no question that I will be getting another one. And then there is the trial of deciding which one — how far to economize, how far to upgrade. 

The wonder of a cellphone there is no denying.  Nothing can be better for traveling, checking directions, checking on kids, confirming information.  For the most part, I use my cell phone for these informational purposes. Since the extended family got on the Verizon family plan, I thought it would be good, too, for “visiting” with my mom, sisters, friends at a distance.  But I’ve heard enough about cell phones and brain cancer to think maybe it’s not a great idea to hold it to my head for great lengths of time.

What is challenging is the phone as a parenting tool.  First there was the question of what age might the boys get a phone.  Dylan in 7^th grade, because he seemed mature enough to handle it.  Bruce, naturally, got his a year earlier, “because everyone has one”, and he is a hard negotiator.  For the most part, it has worked out – maybe not so much as expected.  They rarely talk on the phone, only text.  Dylan has limitless so we have no count, Bruce was up to 2,000 for the month, still a minimal charge.  Only one phone has ever been lost, and that was Dylan’s on a fishing trip, where it slipped out of his pocket into the sea. I was not there, but it occurs to me in retrospect, maybe he was “fishing” for a new phone?  Bruce often leaves his phone at home, because it went off once in school (by accident, he says), and was confiscated.  I have since learned an unintentional call made by sitting on the phone is called a “butt call”. 

Now my biggest dilemma is when the boys don’t have their phones or won’t answer them  or the battery is dead– they have learned quickly to limit accessibility.  For sure, texting will get a quicker result, and I often end up answering calls from strange numbers because the boys had to borrow a friend’s phone. I’m still a plodder at texting, even with the cool short cuts – Call b4 u lv.  On my last trip to Ital, I remember seeing Europeans texting, and thought “it will never catch on”, but it has, for the purpose of privacy, I suppose. Or is it that short bursts of information are all anybody wants to deal with?