...and not being allowed to take it out of the driveway.
My wife and I got new phones - prompted by the recent deterioration of my previous phone (The touch screen started going out - leaving me on 'receive only' mode half the time.) Being the status-conscious-yet-frugal person she is, my wife decided to go for the best possible phone we could get at the absolute cheapest price.
Our carrier has a Cadillac-model G4 phone that they put 'on special' every month for about three days. So I had to wait it out with the 'old and busted' phone until the deal cycled around again, which actually wasn't too bad.
The only problem with the new phones is that we had to upgrade out plan to include a data feed. Now here's another thing about my wife - she's something of a technophobe. She tends to despise new technology - too many buttons, too many menu options. She wants to be able to do simple things quickly. That in itself is not a bad thing... but the problem is that she doesn't see the need to participate in the modern technological world, and she certainly doesn't want to pay for it. To be honest, I'm not sure how I talked her into a cable internet connection - she resisted that one pretty hard because up until about two years ago, all she did online was check her e-mail. About once a month. I on the other hand celebrate new technology. I'm the kind of guy that will shell out a little extra dough to get the nicer model of GPS unit, just so that I can get the FM transmitter (which does nothing but send the audio over to you car's stereo system.)
Anyway, flash forward to today - we both have shiny new devices that have all sorts of bells and whistles, most of which are useless, because our bottom shelf 250 MB monthly data limit doesn't give us much room to do much except check our e-mail. I managed to link all my personal calendars and both my home and work e-mail to my phone, which will be pretty handy, but I'm still afraid that even without any web browsing I may hog up the entire 250 MB that we're supposed to share.
We'll see what happens - it may be that she will eventually concede that we need to spring for the unlimited data plan - or it may be that she will regret getting the phones altogether. More likely, she will probably just hound me about my internet usage, and insist that I remove or disable any and all applications that have anything to do with the interwebs. Maybe someday we'll get a larger data feed but only after the world has moved on to something that will make our phones obsolete.
Such is my life.
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2 comments:
I feel for you. Actually I feel more for your wife who is probably continually dismayed by your technology obsession (or at least the cost of it). I'm one of those people who doesn't use half the functions on my hand-me-down phone, and much to my husband's frustration, I don't care. I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything even though I don't even have a data package. I'm relieved that it's one less thing that I have to figure out.
For months I resisted using the GPS my husband bought, preferring nice reliable paper maps instead. My husband did eventually concede that the GPS is worthless out here. And when we broke down and bought electric toothbrushes, I let him get the top of the line model with the extra display. As usual, I don't know (or care) what half the features do, but I'm not inclined to read a 50 page manual just to brush my teeth.
I have no problem with the fact that she is a technophobe - it's the attitude that "I don't need it, therefore you don't need it either" that I find a bit grating. Granted, she is the one who keeps our finances in line, and if I was given the license to pick up every little gadget at my whim, we'd probably be a lot worse off.
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