My phone is smarter than I am

Jeff and I had dinner at Zest Friday night, and the food was so amazing it wiped out every bit of the stress that had gotten me down earlier in the week.

It was a beautiful fall evening; crispy enough to need a sweater, but not so cold you could see your breath. I knew I wanted to go some place within walking distance. (I'm trying to use those phantom 35 "extra" points Weight Watchers claims I can consume and still lose weight, but I wanted the tiny bit of exercise just in case.)

I really had Mama Corolla's in mind. It's a right turn for us rather than a left to get to Zest, but we've had pasta many times. We'd only managed to get to Zest once before. The line was long at Mama's. So down the street we strolled.

I may never go Italian again. It was that good -- and while it wasn't cheap, it's not over-priced, either. I even had a couple of glasses of wine. If I gain weight next Wednesday, I'll skip the wine but still have the food...

Anyway, I'm trying to focus on that lovely, lovely time because my new Smart phone is killing me. Really KILLING me. I know somewhere in my heart that I'm not stupid. But this thing is annoying. And it did me no good to read that toddlers are playing with iPhones like they're rattles and squeaky stuffed toys. (In my defense; the children aren't customizing the damn things -- they just like the lights and colors. But still.)

Lucky for me, Jeff likes technology and likes negotiating. At this point, I'm not 100percent sure he still likes me, but he made the time to find phones and a deal that will keep us at about the same price for smart phones that our old dumb, no-text plan phones were costing us. We test drove models for a week, and I was figuring out the Blackberry when I decided at the last minute to switch to a phone that has a bigger keyboard and screen. It's some sort of evil, touch-screen/Blackberry hybrid.

I'm pretty sure that we, as a society, have crossed that line where technology is already ruling the world. I suspect that some of it has jumped the divide to actually think on its own. This I know: my phone doesn't like me at all. And I, quite frankly, don't like it, either.

I want my dumb phone back but am afraid to tell Jeff. Plus, nearly all my friends and family persist in sending me texts all the time even though I think they all know I don't have a text plan or text-friendly phone. Like a dope, I read and answer them at some ungodly price per-text.

Not having a text-savvy phone was making me feel that person who held out against TV because she liked to imagine the pictures herself from the old radio shows. Or that guy who wouldn't even consider trading in his horse for a model T. Hell, even Amy Tokash is a texter and she hates change worse than I do. My eldest sister got her iPhone more than a year ago.

Old. I felt old. So old I didn't think it was possible to feel older.

We went together to the store last night to take advantage of the clerks who would transfer all the data from our dumb phones to the smart one.

While we were there, I managed to figure out the basics. I inadvertently started the voice mail set-up process with Alison's DS noise on one side of me, Musak overhead, and the sales crew and Jeff chattering on the other side. The recording was awful and I was trying to re-do it when the damn thing turned on me. That led to one of the clerks snickering at my feeble attempts and I was suddenly done with the whole endeavor.

Before we left the store, I did a superfiical check to see that all my contacts were there, and sure enough, when I got home, I had no contacts from D to W.

I started hand entering the missing info this morning because I just didn't want to face the kid in the store again. I probably was something to laugh at, but I'm not quite ready to admit that.

But even my manual entry got all fouled up. The keypad is pretty sensitive, I guess, and apparently I still have finger weight to lose.

After whining and cursing and frowning and just being a huge brat, Jeff decided to take my phone back to the store to see why neither he nor I can't get my email to recognize my password or to grant me mobile access to email and Facebook. Yeah, it wasn't just me. Jeff couldn't make it work either.

I read the damn book. I followed the instructions. I swear. Is it possible that I did something really wrong and messed my self up? Oh yeah. It might even be likely...

Ugh. I'm going to start thinking about Zest again.

Oh, Ali got her yellow belt. The photo is her and the formidable Master Jay Park.

I bet his phone is smart enough not to torture him like mine is me...

Also, if you don't hear from me by text or voice for a while, it's because I'm still tracking down your phone number. Apparently my smart phone doesn't like you either...