OPINION: Smartphone can sure make you feel stupid

I’ve just returned from the cell phone office with my cell phone now answering the voice mail line. I went to the office because I kept getting a message that my voice mail was on furlough dallying with a strumpet landline in cyber space.

My boys have told me to hold down the No. 1 button when trying to access my messages. I held down the button to no avail for the last several weeks.

My messages were mounting. No telling what kind of important dispatches were eagerly awaiting my reply.

The person at the phone office took my cell from me. She looked at it like it was some sort of artifact from the age when one had to wind up the phone for it to work.

She told me I was supposed to mash (Southern for press) the No.1 button to access my voice mail.

I told her I was well aware of that.

She could tell by looking at me and the phone I was sporting that I was a technological derelict.

“Here,” she said pointing to the button. “This is the No. 1 button that you need to mash. You do it just like this.”

“I know, I’ve been doing that all along,” I replied. “I get some kind of message saying that my voice mail is not accepting calls.”

She pressed the button and gave it a buxomly smile. The voice mail answered and said I had seven calls.

“Something is wrong here,” I said. “I did the same thing you did and it didn’t work for me.”

“Maybe you didn’t mash the button down long enough,” she said with a smirk. “You have to mash it and hold it.”

“I have squeezed it, pressed it, tweaked it, nipped it, crushed it and come pretty close to strangling it,” I said. “It didn’t work, yet here you mash it one time and it works for you. Life’s not fair.”

But she thought she had the answer to my problem.

“Why don’t you consider a newer phone?” she said. “You know they have Smartphones out now. I think a Smartphone is just what you need.”

“If I’m too dumb to operate a dumb phone, what makes you think I could learn how to use a Smartphone?” I said.

“Smartphones are easy to use,” she said. “A Smartphone has advanced features like e-mail, Internet, e-book reader capabilities and a VGA connector. It’s like a miniature computer with phone capabilities.”

I told her exactly how smart I am when it comes to devices of this nature.

I even went one step farther.

“They’ve got a new system at the place I work to log in your hours on the computer,” I said. “I thought I had it mastered until I took a furlough day last week. I put in my regular hours and hit furlough for the day I took off. I was proud of myself.”

But the system, like the Smartphone and other technological advances, aren’t for relics of the manual typewriter age like me.

Whatever I did said I was on furlough all week. If one of the astute editors hadn’t noticed my error, I wouldn’t have been paid for that week.

That’s why I don’t think a Smartphone is for me. I don’t know how to message a text, save a phone number or dial a speedy number on the dumb phone I’ve got.

And if I have as much trouble pressing the No. 1 button and not getting my voice mail on my dumb phone, then there’s no telling what kind of damage I could do to a Smartphone’s ego.