Technically, No

It would be fair to say that I am not what you would call a lover of technology. I prefer my three-ring binder day planner to an online calendar, I love going to the mailbox each day to check my snail mail, and my pulse races for real cards and paper invitations over e-sentiments. All this fancy, newfangled stuff is just more opportunity for something to break.

As a prime example, my car has sensors in the door handles. You touch the handle and, if the car senses you have the key with you, it locks. Grab the back part of the handle and the car automatically unlocks. Friday night, Clint was having trouble getting the very high-tech sensor to recognize that he just wanted to lock the car doors and get on with his grocery store pit stop. I pointed out that no one ever had problems like that with manual locks. Simpler is just better. You never see someone having a crazy time figuring out how to work a record player, now do you?


The cell phone I have been using (or not using, if you will) is five or six years old and it came free with the calling plan. I don't even think they make the model any more--LG Shine, anyone? I picked it purely because it had a mirrored surface and I could use it to apply lip gloss. That's the feature which impressed me most. My calling plan is the Twilight for Seniors package. I kid you not. I did not know this until Clint accidentally left the bill lying around a while back. He was afraid I might find it insulting; but I know my tech resistant ways generally put me in with the AARP crowd. At least it did until last week, when all that changed.

I don't, or didn't, text. My phone didn't even really have that capability, and receiving texts on the Senior Twilight plan costs $1.29 each. But we are headed to Clemson (see also: God's Country) this weekend, and football game weekends tend to turn into mini college reunions. In the past, when people said they would call or text me the day of the game to connect, I just gave them Clint's cell phone number and let him handle it. It seems he has grown tired of responding to my girlfriends' texts and having to hand over his phone every half hour or so for me to return calls. He can be pretty unreasonable that way; I think it's only child syndrome.

I don't own an iPad, and the iPod I have is a "shuffle" from 2008 that holds 100 songs, so I hardly think that counts. When it comes to Apple and all their fancy schmancy inventions, iDon't. The general population has become a trail of ants marching, with their iPhones held directly in front of their faces. Case in point: last week in San Francisco, a man on a commuter train held a gun in the air not once, but four times and the other passengers were all too consumed with their phones to even notice. I don't need a smartphone glued to my hip, beeping, binking, and buzzing all day. I am a housewife, after all, and there is rarely an instance where someone just has to get in touch with me immediately. As much as I hate to say it out loud, I am just not that important. Leave a message on my home answering machine, and I will call you when I get back from running errands.

But now, at my hubby's insistence, I am the reluctant owner of an iPhone. In protest, I tried to point out that Phil Robertson from Duck Dynasty doesn't own any kind of cell phone, and I read that he has never even used a computer. Clint countered by reminding me that I am not a Duck Commander, and that occasionally it might be nice if someone wanted to reach me and my phone was not out in the console of my car.

While I don't like it love it the way everyone else seems to, I am making the best of the high-tech situation. I promptly ordered a gold glitter leopard print case for the thing--hey, accessorizing is important in any situation, never forget that. I have sent a grand total of three text messages in the last week, and let me tell you that at the speed I type, I might as well just drive over to wherever you are and have the conversation in person. You would think that I was a 300-pound man with big sausage fingers the way I hit every key on that phone except the one I actually mean to send. I still love you, pen and paper. You complete me.

Off we go to Clemson for the weekend, and my new leopard print phone will be in my purse, at the ready. Since Clint doesn't seem to want to fan me, feed me grapes, and do all my communicating for me, I'm going to be a big girl and send my own texts and everything. At least until I figure out how to get that Duck Commander title.