Nancy vs. Smartphone – Round 1

Round 1 of Nancy vs. Smartphone has ended. It’s a tie.

Here’s the story.

1. The delivery.

Ever since I ordered my new toy smartphone, I have been running to the window, anxiously waiting for the UPS guy to deliver the package. I see a UPS truck come down the street – hurray! But it stops at my next door neighbor’s house. I almost run out and ask the UPS guy if he has a package for me. After all, I am on a first name basis with him because of all my exercise DVD orders and my LLBean orders. I resist. The UPS truck drives away. Oh dear.

But wait, a Fed Ex truck is coming down the street and it stops in front of my house. I run downstairs to answer the door. The delivery guy comes up the door and hands me the package. I smile and tell him it’s my new smartphone. I go on to tell him that this is my first smartphone. He kind of smiles at me and says, “Well, that’s nice. I actually just have a simple flip phone, I don’t go for all this new technology.” He is probably thinking, “Oh that poor lady. She must not get out much if she is that excited about a package.”

2. The unveiling.

It is really here. I am afraid to walk anyway with the phone with the fear that I will drop it, so I just hold it while I am standing on the carpet. I am feeling more technical already. After impatiently waiting the 15 minutes to activate the phone, it’s ready.

I see little bubble things with words on the screen. I know that you need to swipe your finger across the screen to do something. I try it and all the bubbles disappear off to the side. Oops.

I try swiping again and all the bubbles converge into a little dot. More oops.

I think I should read the documentation first.

3. Mr. Ken.

Mr. Ken is just as excited as I am about the phone. So much so that next time I turn around, Mr. Ken as absconded with the phone and is busy swiping away. Mmm, exactly what is he doing? I suspect he is adding the Dunkin Donuts app to the phone.

4. Day 2.

Mr. Ken asks if I’ve used the smartphone today. I told him I wanted to get my work done first before I got lost in learning all about the phone. Actually, I’m a little intimidated by this phone, there is so much stuff on there! I am sure I will get over this.

5. Dig deeper.

I am paranoid that I will use up my data allotment and yet I am happy to see that I can manage that online. Except, wait, an error message appears, “You are not authorized to access this information because you aren’t the account owner.” What? Who is the account owner. I bite the bullet and do a Live Chat with a Verizon rep. Talk about a surreal experience. I still can’t figure out if I was talking to a real person or a computer. Best I can tell, the Verizon online software was built for the contract phones and has some quirks in it for the prepaid plans, which is what I have. There is nothing that can be done about this, except transfer over to a contract plan. No thank you.

After some time spent on my smartphone, I figure out how to see the data usage. Except I am still puzzled by the message, “this figure may not be accurate because your plan provider may calculate data usage differently.”

Okay, it’s time to take a break from the smartphone and go watch some Jessica Smith exercise videos on You Tube. At least I will have her adorable little dog, Peanut to keep me company.