Plugged In

My husband is a gadget freak.

He loves anything electronic, as long as it serves him and makes his life easier or more efficient.  If it’s new and bigger and better and faster, he’s talking about it.  Oh, how he talks about it.  He talked about wanting to get an iPad when they first came out, and finally got one two years ago.

I did the math, and that is about two years of hearing about how he wants an iPad.  It’s maddening, the frequency with which the love of my life can talk about electronics and how much he desires new electronics.

TVs, phones, computers, headphones, speakers, and I don’t know what else – the thingy that sits under the TV and works out whether we watch TV or a DVD? – I don’t know what that is.  But the man is obsessed.  Did you know that they come out with new electronics every 6.8 seconds?

I’m sort of a Neo-Luddite.

I rarely watch TV, have a three (four? five?) year old laptop, own a Kindle that I sometimes use.  I don’t get excited about gadgets, do not geek out when something that fits in the palm of my hand allows me to operate more efficiently.  We got a DSLR camera recently because our point and shoot was comically horrible, and I am still so discouraged that this new camera didn’t immediately improve my photography skills that I can’t even bear to figure out how to use it.  It’s overwhelming.

Do you need a nap?  I think I need a nap.

Up until 2012 I had a flip phone – you know, the one that was so small you could fit it into your sock?  Or lose it in the bottom of your purse?  My husband raged against its inadequacy.  It had a prepaid plan (hello, one-income family), had horrible service, and was never turned on.  He hated that I was not available every second, hated that I didn’t text because it was too hard, hated that I couldn’t use it everywhere.  I loved it for all of these reasons.

I’m such a fun wife.

So on Christmas of 2012 he gave me an upgrade: a rectangular smartphone with a slide-out keyboard.  I liked the keyboard, but because the phone was on the same network as my little flip, it still had horrible service in our area and the smartphone technology was just not up to par.  In addition, it had its own little quirks - sometimes it would turn off and I couldn’t get it turned back on.  It ended up lost in the bottom of my purse, too.  I actually hated this imposter phone.

Determined to make me love electronics, my husband purchased for me this past Christmas a real smartphone, the kind that has a touchscreen keyboard and all these linky-appy things that people use when they’ve got their noses in their phones.  He set it all up for me, and when he handed it over, he might have held his breath hoping that I would finally embrace the Information Age.

It’s sort of magic.  When I take pictures, the phone makes some of them sparkle.  When I first logged onto the phone, everyone who I have ever communicated with on the internet was right in my contacts list.  I can do facebook, twitter, read books from my kindle right on my phone.  A few times I have used it to give me directions!  The other day I toyed with the idea of entering all my activities into the calendar so I don’t have to drag my book calendar with me to the doctor’s office when I need to make an appointment, something that my husband has asked me to do electronically for a few years now and I have dug in my heels because you don’t need to know what I’m doing.

I love this phone.

I hate it when he’s right.

A picture of my phone, taken with my DSLR.  

Watch out, Annie Leibovitz.  I’m coming.

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This post inspired by:

Mama Kat's Writing Workshop

Prompt 4: Something new you’re loving.