Please don’t take my crappy cell phone away from me!

Life in the Boomer Lane’s technological prowess stops somewhere between the invention of the wheel and that of the cotton gin.  Everything else, LBL puts under one of two categories:

1. It’s magic and she likes it.
2. It’s a curse on her existence and she wants it to go away.

LBL’s enthusiasm for changing anything she has is comparable to that of a prisoner during the Spanish Inquisition being told that a revolutionary new torture rack has been invented that will speed up the torture process and do less harm to the rotator cuff of the torturer.

Enter Now Husband with a swell idea: “Let’s get new cell phones!”

NH then fails to notice that LBL refuses to say anything or to make eye contact with him.  Based on this, he begins to email LBL mind-numbing data on all the various models of cell phones that Verizon sells.  LBL refuses to open any of the attachments.  Her reaction gets so bad, in fact, that she begins to fantasize about spending her time living in a cave and weaving.

The emails don’t stop.  NH is now in his favorite place beside the boat and bed: Technology World.  He starts yelling to LBL from his study:

“Come see this model!”

“Wow! Take a look at this one! It has 3G! ”

“Do you want a qwerty keyboard?” Finally this gets a response from LBL.

“I will not discuss words that begin with the letter ‘q’ or anything that beings with a number.”  LBL is also prepared to eliminate the entire alphabet, if necessary.

NH entices LBL with all the new features she can have.  LBL shoots down each one.  NH saves the best for last: “We can text!”  Great.  This is comparable to someone trying to sell LBL a car by saying, “This car can swerve around mountain roads on two wheels!”

LBL slinks into bed, pull the covers over her head, and eventually the Messages From Technology Central get fewer and farther between, then cease entirely.  She falls asleep and has nightmares about Technical Support.

This morning, NH announces that “one of us has to stay home today to refuse a package.” Since this is the opposite of what LBL usually does (Order something, wait for it, gleefully accept it), she asks why.  NH explains:

“I ordered us two fabulous phones that do everything we want (she doesn’t remember saying she wanted anything) but then you said you don’t want another phone with a trackball, so I tried to cancel the order but it was too late so now we have to be home to refuse the package.”

The trackball was merely one of a number of features LBL told NH she didn’t want.  Others included a screen and a keyboard.  Apparently she was successful in squashing his dreams of cell phone upgrade.  As soon as LBL realized that, she felt really bad.  So bad, in fact, that she quickly reversed her position and declared that they should accept the new phones.  It’s that push-pull thing with her that started in junior high.  Boy likes her so she doesn’t like him.  Boy ignores her so she develops a mad crush on him.  Now she has The Boy, so she’s doing it with cell phones.

NH has just entered the room.  He says, “I’m thinking the new phone is perfect for you, but it really isn’t good for me.  I’ll just keep my old one.  But you will love your new phone.”  LBL suddenly become one of the cast members of “Lost,” still on the island, watching the others leave.  But unlike them, she can’t go back to 1970.