Phone it in

Having so much fun

Our phones were due for an upgrade.
Marc looks forward to this every 20 months or so.
I dread it.
For me it's an experience that has all of the "positive" elements of buying a car or shopping endlessly at a hardware store.
For Marc, it's a visit to Disneyland without the Small World ride.
He loves to look at the gadgets and talk in detail with the salesman about gigabytes and data plans and see how cool a new phone he can snag.
I just want to leave.

His

But Marc just earned a bonus at work and he so wanted the new Droid or iphone 20 or something similar so I went along without protest.
We stopped by Verizon Wireless at around 2 p.m.
TWO HOURS later we were winding up.
I couldn't believe how long it took and how hard it was to watch our rookie salesman try to get our plan and bill right.
He had to add and subtract and multiply (and get help) while I stood by frowning with my hands on my hips.
I had a budget line drawn in the sand and I wasn't crossing it.
And I didn't want a phone with doodads.
I wanted to be able to call out, take incoming calls and text. (Yes, we're finally joining the world of texting. Applaud here.)
I also wanted it to be a pretty color and to keep my Scrabble game if I could.

mine

Marc wanted the Internet access, to keep his iTunes, his games, his GPS capability and be able to watch movies on the airline. He wanted his new phone to iron his shirts and walk the dog. (We don't have a dog.)
He was entranced with the new Droid DNA and told me if he bought anything less, it would be obsolete in a month. That would be sad.
Ultimately we got what we both wanted and now we're at home trying to learn to work our glossy new machines.
He's off in the world of high-tech and I'm trying to learn to spell wrong in text-ese.
Neither of us wants to go through the purchase experience ever again or in 20 months or so.
Can we maybe just phone it in?