Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Cell Phone Madness...

I am tethered to the digital world and struggling with it a bit. It seems our lives are all held in the palm of our hand in that little cell phone. I live with my calendar which has Claude's calendar overlaid on it. I have all Papa's medical information in there to grab if needed. Facebook helps me stay connected in some small way with my life back to my childhood. I use the alarm regularly to get myself going in the morning. So many features that I use throughout each day of my life. But the most important is knowing that is the number Papa has programmed into his home phone and that is the one he will call first if he needs anything. So...I need to have my phone.

About a year ago we purchased new batteries for our cell phones. They were not holding a charge. That really did absolutely no good whatsoever.

My phone was three years old in January of this year. That means it is obsolete compared to today's technology. Mine is a Samsung 3 and they now have a Samsung 7 version. That is so very, very, very frustrating to me. My phone has the ability to do all I need. Just because the company needs to keep 'improving' and 'updating' means my phone gets behind where everyone else's phones are and I have to keep buying something new so mine will even function. It seems like progress to others but to me I see a downward spiral of monetary proportions and hours of frustration with a new phone because, let's face it, it never really loads our contacts and everything just like it was before. 

My phone has gotten so bad that we drove for an hour with my phone plugged into the car charger. At the end of that hour I had 20% less battery than when I plugged it into the car charger. And...the little lightning bolt was on the entire time like it was charging. 

When we were in Michigan, I plugged my charging cable into the outlet and attached my cell phone to it. The lightning bolt was there. I went to sleep. At 6am my phone is making the noise telling me my battery was at 15%. What in the world is that all about? Yep, the lightning bolt is still signaling that it is charging but it really isn't. 

I took part of one afternoon last week and went to the AT&T store to talk with them. I felt and they agreed that it is with the phone. I have four charging cables. They all work on my Kindle and they all work at various times on my cell phone. So, the option is to buy a new phone with all the new plans that they have now. Goodness. 

Claude will get a new phone at the same time I do just because it's what we do. We have to decide on a couple of things with this change. Do we get rid of our land line? Do we switch to DirectV and made the bundle price better? Which plan with DirecTV comes closest to what we currently have with Dish in terms of channels we really watch? I am weary of it all. Weary I tell you. Just plain weary.

But, I am tethered to this digital world and it is most important as I care for my father. So I'll continue to run from outlet to outlet and try to keep my phone charged while I hope and pray Papa doesn't need to make that call. Ain't life grand? Joy in the Journey people. Joy in the Journey.

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