He sees me in a sea of people. He withdraws his gaze immediately, but it is too late. I notice. He’s gotten a haircut since the last time I saw him. The soul patch goatee is gone, replaced by a, if I must say so, feeble attempt at a handlebar mustache. Someone needs to buy the boy some mustache wax. His dark hair is unkempt, longer and ragged at the ends. I wonder if this is the style of the young, or if he is simply a study in contrasts: a nod toward hipster with the absence of any commitment to sustain the effect. I wait for an eternity. People arrive. People leave. I am closer to him now. I wonder if he knows. I watch his Adam’s Apple bob as he wipes the sweat from his brow and contemplates his next move. I see what is about to happen, even before he speaks. His lips move. I hear my name, followed by the number I pulled. He gulps air as he looks up and sees me, really sees me. I know he knows. His fear is palpable. His name is Alfred. He works at the Apple store. He silently curses that I have, again, developed an unsolvable technical issue with my phone. He cannot believe I continue to ask for him.
My mother had a thing about watches. She wasn’t one for jewelry at all, save her favorite rings. Her wedding ring set was traditional but avant-garde for 1966. She chose white gold when everyone was wearing the yellow tones. The center stone was edged on each side by a vertical line of tiny, channel set diamonds. The bottom ring was a line of the same. The only other ring I saw her wear, when I was a child, was an 1897 Indian head penny in a round filigree setting. I own all of these rings now. I assume they came from a long-forgotten pawn shop in Dallas. Momma felt like bracelets called attention to her extraordinarily lengthy arms and shunned them as she did long sleeved blouses that often ended above her wrists. She was not a fan of necklaces, either. I am not sure of that reason. But, watches, those she loved. The feeling, however, was not mutual. Time and time again (pun totally intended), she would go to the pharmacy counter of our local drug store, the one where her mother worked, and beg the pharmacist to look at her newly purchased Timex with the adjustable silver band and the small face with decorative scroll-like designs that held it in place. Small towns mean lots of hats. It just so happened that Charles Smith was as adept at putting batteries in watches as he was counting pills and making medicated lip salve. His response was always the same. “Marsha, I’ll change that battery again. I don’t mind at all. But, you know your wrist is a Bermuda triangle for all watches. By tomorrow morning, it won’t be ticking. They never last on you.”
I exist in an odd realm, historically speaking. My generation took typing classes in high school yet became decently proficient in a world ruled by computers. We used snail mail, then shorthand, then email. Now, we construct messages from smiley faces and send them to each other. Nothing phases us. Yet, I cannot deny how I feel my independence slip a little bit each time the technology advances. I am poised here on the back side of 50. What if I say, “Enough is enough?” What if I don’t want to learn any more technology? What if my brain is still so full of digital nuances, of Pong and pinball and Atari and pushbutton princess phones and electric typewriters with correction tape bands? When does it all become too much? And, these are the thoughts I am thinking when I cry uncle and race off to the Apple store to ask for Alfred’s help, once again. See, everyone around me thinks I understand these complicated phones with their triplicate delete systems and their multi-faceted identification factors and an ocean full of logins and passwords. I do not. I just nod and smile and say yes. I want the simple things in life, including a phone that acts respectfully toward me. Yet, there is something about me that does not couple well with the smartphone. Woefully misnamed, if you ask me. Since I switched over from my adorable little 2010 flip phone with the fake aquarium on the face, the one where the fish swam around when the ringer chimed in to tell you someone desired to speak to you, I have suffered abuse at the hands of an inanimate object. As I have explained to Alfred, more times than I care to count, alarms don’t alarm. Ringers don’t ring. Notifications don’t notify. Speakers don’t speak. Apps don’t apply. Essentially, I am carrying around the world’s most expensive photo album. Alfred tries, he really does. He says he’s never seen anything like my dilemma. He always does the same thing, the dreaded factory reset. Then, we go through the paces. He sets an alarm. It alarms. He sets a notification.
It notifies. He opens an app. It works. Then, like Indiana Jones trying to steal a golden idol with a bag of sand, Alfred hands me the phone. “You try,” he says. Gingerly, I set an alarm, under his watchful gaze. Nothing. I enter a notification for 2 minutes in the future. The awkward silence is painful as we wait for what I know will be disaster. Nothing happens. I see the perspiration beading at Alfred’s temple. “Try an app,” says he. But, my phone has cycled into sleep mode. As I begin to enter my code, Alfred speaks up, excitedly. “Ms. Moon, use the facial recognition technology we just set up.” Yet, this blasted useless brick does not recognize me. Gingerly, I tap an app. The phone freezes. My hopes are dashed, once again. Alfred supposes it’s my circadian rhythm or my body chemistry or some such nonsense. But, I know. It’s the Curse of Time. I got it from my momma.
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