Day 155. SmartPhone Saga Continuation - a.k.a Electronic Phone Hell

Well, this is not the drawing I thought I would be posting tonight--I've still got loads to post of Summer Camp and at least one painting from the Black Crowes concert I went to last night (thought that was the one I would be posting), but after spending more quality time at Target than I ever thought possible, still trying to get a working phone, here's what I've got:

As you can see, I was there a loooooooooooooooooong time.  Thank goodness I have my Strathmore Watercolor Visual Journal with me at all times.

If you remember my mournful loss of my flip phone (May 12th, Day 138. "Goodbye My Dearest Flip Phone"), I got a smartphone, which stopped functioning after 2 weeks.  Back we went to "Tar-jay."  We had our 7-page printout of a receipt, but not the receipt that said we had paid $.02 for them.  So we bought a track phone, since I was off to "Summer Camp" and who knows what was going to happen there!   Later, we found the $.02 receipt, which I returned with tonight.  They didn't have the phone I wanted, then...they did.  They couldn't find my account in the computer, then...they could. (I'm shortening this, mightily!)

Finally, they sold me the phone, but they had run out of ink in their printer and couldn't print me out the confirmation receipt, "but I didn't really need it anyway." Ho! Ho! Ho!  Then, while the clerk was trying to make the phone work, it kept giving a message that there was no SIM card in the phone, even though there was.  Did I mention that this was the "new" phone?  Sooooooooooooooooo, could I just return tomorrow when the manager was in?  She'll know what's wrong.

OMG, I always thought the "third times a charm" but perhaps it's the 4th...or the 5th?  I can't make this stuff up, people!  Am I demagnetizing these phones with my magnetic personality?  Yes, that MUST be it! (-;  Ha!  Oh, boy. 

I must say, all the clerks have been helpful, and I just zoomed off into Zen drawing land while this last episode was going on.  I just think, how much frustration have those stuffed little android creatures seen for every phone sold?  I hope they're in La-La land.

Day 138. Goodbye, My Dearest Flip Phone

About a month ago, I was making pasta for the man.  My pots were in the dishwasher so instead I used a deep Calphalon braising pan to boil the water.  As I was carrying the water-filled pan from the sink to the stove, I was simultaneously talking to my mom on my cell phone.  And just as you see a glass falling or yourself tripping in slow motion, my cell phone slipped from where it was perched underneath my chin pressed to my shoulder.  You see, I was using both my hands to carry that heavy pan!  I watched as it slid, slid, slid slowly down my arm into its watery death.  I could still feel the ghost of it's weight under my chin, yet my eyes saw--there it was, looking like an underwater turtle with a snorkeling tube of an antenna.

I did manage to shake myself out of disbelief, grab it, and resuscitate it.  However, it was never the same.  It had already been moving into the land of feebleness.  I knew I had to make the switch to a smartphone.  I had even recently been at an art show in February and another artist said to me aghast, "Are you still using a FLIP phone?  I saw you pull out an ANTENNA.  I can't believe it!"  I mean, I felt like I was holding a Thomas Edison relic in my paws.

Listen, I was the same way with my bag phone.  I know about 2% of the population remember those, but until it was stolen out of my car, it was suiting me just fine.

O.K., so after a month of my phone flashing "car kit connected, car kit disconnected" and constantly dying on me, my husband and I FINALLY made the leap to the 21st century.  It seems there are quite a few dazzling things I can do with this new phone...if only I knew how to do them.  Oh little flip phone, how I miss your ease, your simplicity, your inability to make me frustrated when I just want to dial a stored phone number!

Here's a re-enactment of the ultimately deadly event, followed by an appearance by Mr. Flip on my counter as I was finishing up work on my 2011 Brooklyn Sketchbook Project, "Coffee and Cigarettes."  (P.S. Cigs are props only--you'll find me puffing on an inhaler!)