The Silver Fox Joins the Twenty-First Century, Part the First

The Silver Fox is an extrovert and, I swear, that boy loves to talk on the phone better than any 13-year-old girl who ever lived. I've been known to play like I can't hear the phone ringing so that I don't have to talk on the stupid thing. I've used smartphones for a few years now, and because I'm somewhat of an Apple fangirl, I currently have an iPhone 4. The Silver Fox, on the other hand, has had this phone since 2006. I promise he's fairly technologically savvy, but this phone -- honestly, I don't know what is the deal here, but it's been with the SF so long that it's become like a member of the family. He shows it off to his students. "I don't need 'bells and whistles', I just need a phone that works." What is he, 80 years old?

Granted, the Silver Fox is the man who had a Facebook account for two hours once. He set it up, posted, added some friends, played around, and looked up to realize it was two hours later. He deleted the account immediately. He says it's because he wasted so much time, but really, that's never stopped him before. It's more like he'd rather just pick up the phone and talk to you. (He also hates to type, mostly because of a spinal cord injury that causes his fingers not to do right.)

The Nokia has been dropped, hit, perhaps even run over. I do know it has been involved in a few moving vehicle violations. Miraculously, the thing still works! Recently he's been using his phone to text more, mainly to reply to people who text him, and people will send him pictures that he can't open, so when the trusty Nokia started to show signs of giving up the ghost, he started dropping hints that he might want "a phone with a keyboard." Okay, with real buttons, I ask, or a touch screen? "I'm not sure." This has been going on for months. He'll go back and forth -- the Nokia is awesome, no, it's dying, he hates texting, but clients text him and he needs to be available, etc. etc.

This week he decided he wanted to take the plunge. My job was to go online to see what was available, and he chose a refurbished iPhone 4. (With very little input from me, I promise.) I ordered it online and we waited for it to arrive.

To be continued.