Welcome to The World of Smart Phone Technology

For those of the Tribe Technology out there who may feel they would like to throw us a 'Welcome Party' , Mrs Ed and I have finally taken the plunge and joined the new era  - we got ourselves smart phones! 

You see we've always had bricks…. er … phones, that have been, well, at the bottom of the communication food chain, I suppose, much to the mirth and then embarrassment of our two techno-savvi teenagers.
Not that it was our fault of course, no, the blame clearly lies with GAME. Why? Well they used to make a deal that when your contract was up for renewal, if you 'upgraded' to a pre Noah cell-phone you got  a thousand Rand or so in shopping vouchers! For Free! Of course if you went for a better phone, the voucher value dropped.  Hence for the past few years we have both opted for the Nofia Abacus 1.5 which had a choice of two ring tones and a pencil and slate strapped to the side instead of a camera.  Then of course we shopped 'til we dropped!

But this year, when our cell phone service provider said the time had come for upgrade -  we decided to take a bold step towards being technologically savvy…. Basically because the voucher offer was no longer on the table.

So last Thursday, after picking up The Resident Expert on Everything  (The REE) and The Money Consuming Machine (The MCM) from school, we stopped at Voodookom. I decided that I should handle the matter myself:-having recently mastered the dishwasher AND the DVD machine when Mrs Ed was away, I knew I was obviously a natural in the technological field.

We walked in and I informed a studious looking old gentleman in a white coat that I had come for our upgrades and that - presuming he was a professor of communications who had been flown in to handle our particular contract - we would probably wish to engage in in-depth discussion on the various pro's and con’s of different hand sets.
“Good luck to you,” he said, “I'm just here to deliver pies for the staff.”  I noticed The REE taking a few steps back to study a display case... as if he belonged to someone else. 
I walked to the desk where a young boy was sitting behind a computer  (“Probably visiting his father's workplace to do his homework,” I thought .)
He looked up at me and raised a pierced eyebrow.
“Is your dad here?” I asked.
“Er... no.  Should he be?” was the reply.
I felt a sharp pain as The MCM s school shoe connected with my shin. (“Da-aaad!”) she whispered sharply under her breath.
I glanced at the youngster, and saw that he was actually wearing a staff badge and so probably worked there.  I got to business, speaking slowly so he would understand the technical terms.
“We - need  to  up - grade  our Cell-u-lar Phones.   We - want - one - of - those - CLEVER - phones each,” I said assertively.
Another kick sent pain up my femur.
(“Smart, Dad.  It's a Smart phone!”)
“Oh yes.  A - smart - phone. Two - smart - phones.”
He barely changed his expression, but stared intently at his computer screen.  I could swear he was playing pinball or something on it because he clearly wasn't concentrating on me.  Then I presumed he relapsed back to his days serving at MacDonalds pudding counter.
“Apple or blackberry?'
“Listen,” I said, exasperated, “I'm not ordering a pie, or a jar of jam… Isn't there someone older I can talk to…?”

Sensing the security cameras may well be recording footage of the scene to play at their schools assembly the following day, The MCM grabbed my hand and dragged me outside whilst The REE took over negotiations.....

By the time we all got in the car for our return journey I was even more confused than before. The REE slipped behind the steering wheel (Yes I'm afraid he has his learner's license  but considering the Mayan Calendar says the world will come to an end in a week or so, I'm hoping there won't be enough time for him to cause too much mayhem on the roads)and muttered. 
 “Darn! I was hoping to get them a couple of torches,” he said to The MCM, who was brave enough to sit in the front passenger seat.
“Don't stress,” she answered. “I'm sure they'll be happy with their curves.”
Sitting with Mrs Ed in the back -   both in crash position - I presumed that they were talking about midnight gym classes or something.  “But what about our phones?” I whimpered (I tend to go into whimper mode when The REE gets into the driver's seat.
By the end of the trip it had been explained to me that our 'Curves' were indeed Clever Phones, and by that evening, once The MCM had set the things up and downloaned all the necessary abbs, I must say I was very impressed. 
“So I can get email, send instant messages, go the google, and downvert music, all on this?” I asked her and her brother.
“Yep.  And you can also twitter, log on to Face Book, and get up to the moment news….. but perhaps you guys shouldn’t do everything right now -  take on a bit at a time, you know, so you get the hang of it,” said The REE.
“Oh no!” Mrs Ed and I replied in unison (we're both fluent in it) “We want it ALL, and we want it NOW!

It was amazing what those phones could do!  Mrs Ed and I spent the entire evening curled up with our curves on the WMCC (World's Most Comfortable Couch) sending gazillions of messages (to one another firstly, but thereafter to every relative we could think of), updating our facetube profiles, googling, trying to twit, surfing the net, receiving emails, answering emails…. And the real wonderful thing was that our kids set up the phones with a different song, noise, beep, bleep, tune, chirp or chime to alert us of each new communication arrival onto our phones.  Oh it was so good to be part of the twentyfirst century!

Of course it was 1am by the time we stumbled up the stairs to bed,  technologically exhausted but still enthusiastically engaged in our new era in communication.  Once settled under the duvet I pecked Mrs Ed on the cheek and lovingly messaged her goodnight.  My phone blipped a cricket chirp which signaled her reply -  she had sent me a cutesy heart and smiley face.  Aaah, life was good.....

Just as I was dozing off I was snapped awake by Mrs Ed's Curve emitting a baby gurgling sound - apparently her cousin in Canada had written on her Facebook wall. Then at 2.05am my phone erupted into a series of loud belches (they had sound quite hilarious earlier when the phones had been programmed) as Google automatically sent me a blog update from a windsurfing forum.  I had barely got the bedside light on and found my reading glasses when Beethoven's fifth blared out from the other side of the bed. 
“It's an email from Knockear offering me a new deal,” Mrs Ed muttered, holding her phone close up so she could read the small print. I had only half-typed my commiserations to 'Frustrated' in Southern California, to let him know I had also battled to find spares for the Breezemaster 27, when the doorbell rang.  This was odd as we do not have a doorbell.  Mrs Ed sat up in bed, snatched up her phone and blinked at the screen. 
“Its alright,” I said, “It's mine - just somebody called Keith Maniac from Guatemala who wants to view my profile.”
“No problem”, she yawned, “I wanted to double check if my online brownie recipe had come through anyway,”

We finally closed our eyes at about 2.40am. I know because I had fallen into deep REM mode when a Barn owl hooted me awake at 3.03am, signalling an sms from some service provider saying that the service might be erratic due to an undersea optic line fault.  Sometime around 3.37am Mrs Ed apparently won Four Million British Pounds in an online lottery, (her curve sang 'You're just to good to be true' in celebration. Quite loudly). 

Then at 3.52am the Curve baby gurgled again…someone suggesting Mrs Ed join the Stop Ferret Slaughter in Timbuktu Group…. which obviously awoke the Belcher in my phone because someone had blogged a theory on the Sedgefield River Mouth opening (what on Earth were they doing blogging at four in the morning?).

At 4.22, 4.33 and 4.39am Beethoven individually welcomed three pictures of Mrs Ed's second cousin's child’s birthday party… which obviously couldn't wait until morning,  and I was kept updated by something called 'no-reply' as to how my twitter registration was going…. or wasn't.

Then at 4.50 some idiot bank sent me a text message saying someone had generously deposited R7.50 into our company account, the same bank waited only 25minutes before sending an email with our bank statement apparently attached. I was worried that Mrs Ed might have been awoken by the cacophony of alert bleeps, but a glance over to her side found the dazed woman frantically searching for the 'alarm off' switch  - she had set it for 5.15 so she could get an early start in exploring her online shopping options….
At 5.30 we both got SMSed simultaneous by The REE and The MCM.  The messages were identical:- “Would you two like to swap your curves for our phones for a week or so, just so you can get some sleep,”  These kids knew exactly what buttons to press.  We messaged our equally identical answers in unison
“We'd be mad if we didn't!”