Posted 7:07 PM by Angie Schultz

New Toy

Hey, look what I got! A cell phone! And it takes pictures!



Well, OK, it's not my cell phone, it belongs to Niles. But he already has a phone, so this is "mine".

As you can see, it takes really crummy pictures.

As near as I can figure it out, he had a phone once upon a time, and wanted to upgrade but keep his own number. No can do, said the phone company, so he got a new phone and number, but kept the old one as well. That was a couple years ago, and now the old phone is so out of date that they're going to start charging people extra to use the old technology.

So he went to get a new phone for the old number. No can do, they told him. But this time he knew they were lying, so he went to a different phone store (same company) and they set him right up.

But this is "my" phone, which I'm to keep here at home and grab to take with me in case of emergency. Such an emergency is bound to come along every century or so, in which event I'll probably panic and forget to take the phone.

Anyway, I've finally joined the 21st century. And with the addition of an inexpensive kit, now I, too, can look like a crazy woman.

Just a few minutes ago, as we were leaving the grocery store, some woman with an explosion of hair started yakking to Niles:

Did you hear about the...pretending to be lawyers...money...thieves...you didn't hear about that?

That's all I heard of her conversation, and that's pretty much all Niles absorbed, too. He just said "uh," and "huh," and "no," and not at all "get the hell away from me," since he is a gentleman (haven't been able to break him of that yet). He finally joined up with me again and she headed toward her car. She was still talking as she walked away.

"You thought all the crazy people were on the internet," Niles said. "Now you know that there are still old-fashioned fresh-air crazies running around."

"Was she on the phone?" I asked Niles.

"I didnt' think of that. I thought she was talking to me!" Her hair made it impossible to tell whether she had those little earphones on.

I told him this was a good excuse to ignore weirdos. "Oh, I'm sorry! I assumed you were on the phone. Freak."