Make Mine An Android, Please

Nik talked me into getting a smart phone the other day. I had been hanging onto my old Samsung slider for some time and the keypad was "losing touch" shall we say. Nik is like my Uncle Larry, a gizmo guy. Give him a new anything and he has it figured out end to end within 24 hours. All I want is something that remembers phone numbers, can be used as an alarm or calendar, and fits in my pocket.

The good thing is that my kids know me pretty well by now, especially when it comes to this kind of stuff. Sometimes I actually get a little ticked at how well Kyle knows me, but he's almost always right. That actually makes me a little ticked, too, but what can you do?

We walked into the Sprint store which was manned by no less than 11 sales people. I've waited for almost an hour before at a rival store just to get someone's attention to ask a basic question, but with Nik along, you only need a sales person to ring up the purchase.

Nik: "Mom, there are two kids of smart phones, IPhone by Apple and Android by Google."

Mom: "Do they have them in some pretty colors?"

Nik: "These over here come in 3G and those over there are 4G. G has to do with speed."

Mom: "This one is too fat and that one is too ugly."

Nik: "This one is a slider. You turn it sideways and it has a qwerty keyboard for typing."

Mom: "That's quirky, not qwerty. Why in the heck would somebody re-arrange the danged keyboard and who has fingers that small anyway? What is the matter with people?"

It went like that. I ended up with a 3G Samsung Transform Ultra, a $50 rebate, and a qwerty keyboard that I tried and will probably never use again. I came home, went on Ebay and ordered a lovely blue Hawaiian-flowered case and can tell I'm going to have to order at least one spare battery. It's been three days and I have a headache from looking at the screen learning how to download apps and create groups, change settings, etc. I start to panic when the battery gets near 70% power. It's almost like one of those simulated pets where you stay up nights making sure you feed and play with it so it doesn't die. The screen is so sensitive that I had to take off one-touch dialing because I was calling people randomly. Ring..."Did you call me? No, I thought you called me. Sorry, new phone...." (If you are one of the few people I haven't "pocket-called" yet, please accept my apology in advance.)

One of the greatest features is that I now have Voxer and can talk to my daughter in Canada for free. It's sort of like a walkie-talkie setup. Nik set us up on an app called GroupMe; all the family were invited. It was fun for the first while, but then it became sort of like a wild Facebook; every time anybody said anything, everybody else got a notification. People were clamoring to get out of the family. Too much of a good thing....

I can't wait to Vox my grandson, Carver, and tell him GRANDMA HAS A TRANSFORMER PHONE!