Cantankerously Yours

Welcome to My World

By Wendell Abern

Dear Fellow Oldersomethings,

          How’s your world?  Mine is intimidating.  I awaken each day fearful my car won’t start, my Microwave won’t heat, my refrigerator won’t cool, my computer won’t compute, or my TV set won’t televise.

          If you’re living in the same world, I have sage advice to impart:  never lose your cellphone.

          Lost mine. 

So I use my land line to call the cellphone and see if it will ring in some logical spot, like my clothes hamper or oven.  Nothing.  Spend two days scratching around under the seats of my car, hauling everything out of my car’s trunk that hasn’t been opened since last Thanksgiving, trace my steps to bridge club, super market and dry cleaner.  Nothing.  

Haven’t been in Chicago for five months, but I deliberately call my kids to ask if they’d seen my cellphone — taking a perverse delight in activating their growing concerns about my deteriorating mind. 

I call Verizon to tell them about the loss, and to request they discontinue all service to the lost cellphone.

“No problem,” says a cheerful young lady named Colleen.  “And just coincidentally, your contract is up.  Would you like to renew it?”

“No.  No more contracts.”

 “We have some wonderful new phones you can text on, take or send pictures –“

“Do you have a phone that will clean out my cat’s litter box?”

Giggle.  “No sir.”

          “Not interested.  Thank you.”

          The commercials for Metro PCS advertise no contracts, one set price every month, unlimited calls.  My first stop the next morning.

          I tell a beautiful young woman named Bertha I just want a cellphone that will make and receive phone calls.  Nothing fancy.

          “I know exactly what you want,” she says. “Same exact phone I gave my father.  You remind me of him.”

          “At least it’s not your grandfather.”

          “Yeah, him too.” 

          I had to open my mouth.    

After I fill out forms and sign my name, Bertha hands me a sheaf of papers thicker than the New York Times, with instructions on what to sign, what to mail to the district office, and what to file.  Then she packs up my phone, all the papers, an instruction booklet, and the box containing chargers for both home and my car’s cigarette lighter slot.

When I get home, I unwrap everything and take out the instruction booklet, which I leaf through for about twelve seconds before calling Bertha.

“Your instruction booklet is smaller than a deck of cards!” I yell.

“And it’s printed in four-point type!  And it’s 115 pages long!  All I want to do is make phone calls!  Why do I need a 115-page instruction booklet?”

          “You don’t have to learn everything that’s in there.  And my father uses a magnifying glass to read his.”

Wonderful.  I have the good sense not to ask if her grandfather uses a microscope.

I try my magnifying glass.  One of the first words I tackle is “connector.”  Easy to see the “c” and the “o” at the beginning, but by the time I navigate through the rest of the letters and end up with the “r,” I forget what word I am reading.

          I’ve had enough.  I decide that most cellphones must operate the same way.  I call my landline phone, answer it with foul language and hang up both phones.  Then I call my cellphone from my landline phone, answer it with more foul language and hang up both phones with a smug smile.  I can call and answer.  I consider myself an undiscovered genius.

          About a month later, I find seven messages in my inbox, and I don’t know how to retrieve them.  I sneer at the instruction booklet, curse at the

magnifying glass and go back to visit Bertha.

          “I see people have called,” I tell her, “I hit the ‘Okay’ button to get to my inbox, but all I get is my own phone number.”

          In three seconds, Bertha explains everything. I smile.  She smiles back.  “And by the way,” she says, “your phone indicates it’s time you pay your monthly bill.”

          “Where does my phone say that?”

          “Right there,” she says, pointing to the small window on my phone.  At the bottom, it reads, “Monthly payment of $45 due yesterday.”

          “What!” I yell.  “I didn’t receive a bill!”

          “We don’t send bills.  Just go online and you’ll find out where to send your payment.”

          “I don’t want to go online!  I want to get a bill in the mail!  I want a piece of paper with my name on it!  And the calls I made!  And the monthly fee!  All in black and white!”

“We don’t send bills.”

          “Okay, okay.  Is this all some kind of geriatric practical joke?”

          “No sir.  You can do everything on line.  In fact, we can even arrange to have your fee deducted from your bank account monthly.  We just need your debit card information – we don’t accept credit cards.”

I go home, find the Metro PCS website, fill in the proper information, give them the number of my debit card, and wait patiently for approval.  Instead, I get a message in red:  “Payment from this debit card refused.”

I look at my debit card.  It expired in January, 2003, one month after the only time I used it

          I go to my bank.  They issue me a new debit card.  I go back to my computer and pay.  I am accepted!  I decide to call Bertha to see how to go about having PCS Metro deduct my fee automatically from my bank.  She gives me a number to call.

          That was yesterday.  Right now, I am staring at the phone, trying to ramp up the courage to call the number Bertha gave me.  I pick up my instruction booklet and magnifying glass, remembering fondly the many telephones I’ve used in my life that didn’t require instructions.

          But that was my old world.

Truth is, I love this new world too, when everything works when it should. But that’s only 18% of the time — a percentage I made up to punctuate my frustration with this new world, where everything stops if anything goes wrong with anything.

          So what’s your world like?  I hope it’s all working for you.  That

everything starts and stops when you want it to. 

Whatever you do, don’t lose your cellphone. 

          Cantankerously Yours,

          Wendell Abern

Wendell Abern can be reached at dendyabern@comcast.net.