My Dumb Phone

I have what is now being referred to as a dumb phone, the flip-phone. Interesting. The internet leaves no door open. When this new device entered my life, earlier this year, I thought a new service provider would be the beginning of something satisfying, after having replaced my old flip of 27-years. 

I own another flip phone. It is brand new and was sold to me in a store where young people were working. Perhaps jealousy reigns when a person decides to buy what serves them and is not influenced by the latest local or worldwide trend. Today the smart phone is king while directing us in all facets of our lives. Even our fridge talks to us if we want it to.  

The smart phone is a remarkable tool of the modern era, a camera in disguise, an insurance and medical device that offers up everything, non-stop. It's can be an addictive tool that can rob us of priceless time and put us at financial risk. We are its instrument of change, non-stop. The act of scrolling takes you everywhere: choosing a car, vacation spot, restaurants a la mode and on and on. Dating sites. Well, I 'll leave that one alone.

My flip phone is cute, costs less, is smaller and does whatever it wants all the time. Once upon a time, a very long time ago, one rotary black phone ruled the roost and somehow I managed to live, go to school, get a career going, get married, have children of the human and animal kind just as the chat room was looming large.

Life is more hectic because some other entity - large or small - has figured out we're easy prey while making the rules some of us live by. Who is in charge anyway? Websites that look the same yet only one is real..... Now what? 

Already there are too many#s all over the place. Clubs abound everywhere. Only a few are worthwhile. Food clubs and delivery for our lazy selves. It takes one salmon sandwich or a 'healthy hot dog to fill me up. The salad is here to compliment my health and the meal.

Whatever happened to “user friendly'? Email has replaced telemarketers to annoy us forever. A manual for those appliances and cars would be nice reading. I do not want or need to be on the computer, my phone ignoring all those real parts needing me. Mr. Wiggles' life would be diminished. My 'dumb' phone is not dumb. I might be if it was the center of my life. A phone did not save my 8-year-old's son's life. I did. My phone serves me not the other way around. Where is that black rotary phone I used to love? And 'email is easy'. Oh, how it is.

Touch is overrated. Walking past my clothes washer a week ago I accidentally locked it. On other occasions cycles were started. (I knew the secret to unlocking this decades old appliance as it sat there smiling smugly at me.) 

Improving our lives with streamlined devices- large and small - is not always a step in the right direction. ... Too many things on one device can cause too many other things to simply malfunction. Bankruptcy is but a click or two away. When does the work day end?

Leave the phone inside where it belongs. Where is my calm and happy boy? Let's go outside again to bounce, breathe and chase each other. That is so fun just like reading a book, eating an apple as I hold it for you my boy or massaging your legs at night. There is nothing dumb about any of that! It is called   real life on my terms.