Going back to old school…maybe

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It is definitely harder to teach an old dog new tricks. Especially if that dog is a person like me.

I am smart, quick to pick up and attentive (sort of). Yet there are many ways that I don’t modernize.

Take my car (not literally of course!). I have an incredible dashboard that does everything but clean windows and make lunch. Lots of things are on my steering wheel yet when I want to change the radio volume I reach for the knob on the dash.

No matter how hard I try, I can’t break that habit. Don’t use cruise control either.

I get so few cell phone calls that I didn’t “connect” when I changed phones so I don’t get calls through the car system. Truth is that I don’t get calls period. From anyone. At any time. Ever.

I haven’t been an avid phone person since I was a teenager when it was attached to me like a body appendage. Somewhere along the line I had it surgically removed. Now I’d rather email.

I can do that at my convenience; get to the point of the call; and dispense with niceties. (God, don’t make me be nice to anyone!) I can also do it when the person I want to connect with isn’t available or it’s not a socially accepted time to call.

Recently I took part in judging presentations for our local vocational-technical school. I was with two other judges. They pulled out their cell phones and I pulled out my “old school” calculator. There was some giggling as my calculator made clicks when I touched the keys. I had my cell phone but it goes blank after a period of time and the calculator required two menu choices. Easier to have the old calculator sit on my table.

Recently I’ve had some issues with my rarely used, two-year-old cell phone. It’s a smart phone but not super fancy. Bottom of the line. Very bottom. (That means there is no Siri, Alexis or Beulah to help me.) Occasionally someone will text me but I haven’t had a call in over a year. I deleted the minutes from my plan and just have text and data.

I admire people who whip out their phone to look up things or do stuff. Whenever I try that my fingers aren’t limber and it takes forever. It’s faster to walk to the local library and find an encyclopedia. (You do remember what those are, don’t you?)

My carrier says my cell phone is out of date (seriously at two years?) and needs to be replaced. It’s not taking the upgrades well. For how often I use it, I can limp along with it as is for a while yet.

The carrier sells the old flip phones. They have some added features (but not web access which I don’t use). My next phone will be a flip phone. Hopefully they have them in red.

One step forward and two steps back.

38 thoughts on “Going back to old school…maybe”

  2. I limped along with my old phone for four years before replacing it. It was beat and not everything worked anymore. But as my mother used to say, “It doesn’t owe me anything.” I also never get any calls. My wife’s phone rings constantly, but no one ever calls me. I’m not complaining. – Marty

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  3. Baaahaaaaaa!!! Thank you!!! I laughed out loud and hard at this! Needed that this morning. I’m completely new to this blogging thing, just started yesterday!! I’m just browsing around and I’m just wowed, shocked, amazed at what is on here, thank you for the “normal” life chuckle!!! I completely sympathize with the phone issue, just switched to flip phones in November, all the teenagers at my sons high school think he is pretty cool with it!! Who knew??! It’s retro! And btw….mine is red. We went with consumer cellular. Love them!! Have a great day!! And thanks again!!

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    • Glad you enjoyed your visit. We have Consumer Cellular and love them too although for my last call I got someone highly accented and hard to understand. Hoping that they didn’t outsource their consumer service. You can’t beat their prices if you are just an occasional user.

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  4. I like my iPhone, but didn’t at first. My fingers were too big for the keyboard, but it learns your touch after a while. Same thing with Siri. She didn’t understand my southern accent and I would get all sorts of strange answers. I liked the flip phones too. You didn’t have to worry about the screen getting scratched up. I do like having the net handy. I always think of things I want to look up before I forget about it.

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    • I’m sure if I used it more, I’d get better at it. I rarely use it. My biggest beef with it is that that battery runs down faster than my old flip phone. I have to charge every other day and that’s without using it. If I used it, I’d had to charge every day. I would have loved this 50 years ago when waiting for a phone call kept me tethered to the house.

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  5. I have a fancy smartphone, but, like you, I rarely use it as a phone (maybe they need to rename them something like “mini-computer connection devices”). I love texting: succinct, easy, tell me what you want and move on. Even email often requires too much effort. My car is way too complicated… I would never choose the same one again. I have no idea what’s on the steering wheel except my horn… and don’t irritate me or I’ll use it.

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  7. A couple years ago, I was using a phone from the 90s that only had a texting and calling option. No data, no calculator, nothing. It wasn’t even a touch phone- it had numbers 0-9 as keys on its bottom half, and to text, you had to click on a number, and then scroll down to the appropriate letter as it appeared on the screen. I didn’t know how to use it all that well, so when it went off in class one day, I had no idea how to turn it off. The teacher got pissed at me, the entire class turned around to glare at me for interrupting the teacher’s incredible story about his dog’s constipation…it was mortifying. I still kept the phone another year or so though…who needs texting when you can just ignore everyone?

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  10. Every time I get a new computer program or phone or car, I tell myself I’m going to sit down and figure it what everything does out BEFORE I need it for real.

    I almost never do. Then I’m cross because I’m impatient and it won’t do what I want. I have to ask my husband and then he makes me look like an idiot. (Yes, even with the rice cooker.)

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    • Oh yeah, this is me! I went to help a friend who just came home from the hospital. I had brought in some food and went to microwave it. She said I couldn’t use the microwave because she hadn’t read the manual yet. I threw the damn food in and hit the button. Presto, just like magic, the food was ready. Read the manual? That’s what you do when it doesn’t work. The first 30 pages include things like “Don’t operate in a pond” and “Don’t let babies around unattended.” The instructions are always the last 2 pages out of 100. If there is a quickstart one-pager, I’ll glance at it.

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  13. I hear you… I still use my windows phone and I only once asked Cortana… just to find out that she is stupid. I sometimes sigh when I see the youngsters who qasi live the life of their smartphones… but on the other hand, I’m not those who fall in holes or crash into light posts while having my nose and my eyes on the phone.
    btw: Mark thought the dashboard for the radio on the wheel is for the headlights… he pushed the button to the max, became nearly deaf but there was no enlightenment… not around the car nor at him LOL

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