September 11, 2003

• The Old Fart in the Twenty-First Century

  
  

  Greyfox got a cell phone.  He has had it for a couple of days.  It was a tough decision for him.  He is a Luddite, hates new technnology, he says.  As he often does, he consulted consumer reports and newspaper articles to help him pick one. 

  
  

  He found just the hardware he wanted.  It was a no-frills design, didn’t have games, day-planner or video–just made phone calls.  It had a large readable display and a key pad with bigger than usual keys.  He thought it looked great, just what he needed.  Trouble was,  it was only available through one service, and that company does not serve Alaska.

  
  

  So he ended up going to the AT&T kiosk at Wal-Mart.  He took me along for moral support.  He had been in there a few days previously and saw an acceptable phone, a Nokia for $49, with a full mail-in rebate, a free phone in other words.  That one was out of stock at the time and is still out with no projection of when it might come back. 

  
  

  He settled for a Motorola because it was cheapest, without even looking at what else was available.  That’s not the way I’d do it, but what the hell, it’s not my phone.  I’d be shopping around for the best SERVICE, never mind the hardware.  My phone is a land line and until cell service improves around here, I’d rather wait.

  
  

  The woman there explained how to turn it on and off, gave him a post-it with his new phone number (digits add up to 23, no surprise there ). he put it in his pocket and hung onto the box with the charger and instruction book for dear life.  I dropped him off at his place and came home.

  
  

  Since his “unlimited” minutes start at 9PM, I only got two brief messages from him on my internet answering machine during the day.  He was just testing to see if it worked in Wal-Mart’s parking lot and some other location.  He had gone back to ask the woman how to turn off the display’s back light to conserve his battery life.

  
  

  That was Tuesday, his first cell day.  The next day, yesterday, he was calling me all day.  Still little short messages, like news teasers:  “details after nine.”  He did speak to me once, from the men’s room at the historical museum in Wasilla.  He was taking a pee break from his stall at the Farmer’s Market.  I could hear the tinkling sound in the background–pretty good acoustics in the tile room and decent microphone in the handset.

  
  

  At one point he said, “I love this thing!”  He even said he wished he’d gotten one at the start of the summer instead of walking a block or so and across the highway and feeding quarters into the pay phone all the time.  This is his usual style:  shy away and avoid new experiences and then regret the lost time.  It’s the opposite of how I generally do things (such as web design), diving in head-first all the way and then licking my wounds as I scramble to get up to speed.  We sometimes discuss those differences and laugh about it.  He’s a Libra.  He says, on average, it balances out.

  
  

  

  • 1:52 pm
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