My Dubious Relationship with Technology (and Other Things)

Fabulous iPhone 3G

My mom always liked to say things like “Oh, Tessie can’t do that! Johnny you change that light bulb. You know she has two left hands.” Or the time when my mom and I went to Ikea and I bought some new chairs that needed to be assembled. I promised myself over and over that no matter how long it took, I would assemble the chairs and not call in the troops for help.

Before sitting down with the screw driver and instruction manual I gave myself a little pep talk that included things like “I’m a smart woman. I can do this.” or “What’s the big deal, just read the instructions and execute.” Well, it took many days, a bottle of wine or two and the exchange of many quizzical expressions between my mom and myself (who is similarly challenged) before we gave up and called my friend Erica in to finish (start) the job and who then proceeded to do it in less than an hour.

I’m the same person who before marriage still had a TV with rabbit ears (which wasn’t stolen by the way, when I got broken into) and who’s electronic digital life lay in various states of disrepair around me. Needless to say, I am not an engineer and neither was I born with a computer chip in my head. Technology and anything that requires spatial sense flummoxes me. I am a girl, as my mom would say, who lives with her head in the clouds and is more tumbleweed than human being. Meaning I am impractical in every sense of the word.

That’s why my fixation with getting an iPhone took me a little off guard. I had a cell phone for a short while but when the contract ran out I didn’t get another one and I didn’t miss it.I barely knew how to turn it on and I never answered or returned any calls. I felt proud that I was likely the only one of three people in the whole of metro Vancouver that didn’t have a cell phone. Luddite! Delightfully elusive and unconnected! Nobody knows where I am! I will update no-one about anything. If I have a car accident, I’ll do what unconnected people do, I’ll stand at the side of the road and wave my arms! I will be forever brain cancer free!

But I wanted an iPhone. A pink one. And now somehow I have one in spite of everything I said above. When Dave gave it to me he said it was a great phone for me because it was very ‘intuitive’ and I would be able to make my way effortlessly through its various fabulous offerings. Well it turns out it’s not that intuitive. My friend Susan tells me I must spend quality time with my iPhone.

I’m not sure why the dramatic change of heart from being an unconnected Luddite tumbleweed to being a sassy connected iPhone user but I suspect it has something to do with it being pink. Or maybe I don’t want to get completely lost as technology moves forward in leaps and bounds. Or maybe I’m trying to resist giving in entirely to just not being able to do certain things. I like to think that my fabulous new iPhone is actually helping me to develop the undeveloped part of my brain. In fact, my iPhone is actually good for me and my future as a human being and is turning me into something of a genius! As part of today’s mental development I’m going to spend my day with my new pink phone.