Phone Home

Gene finally caved and bought an iPhone. So if you were betting that he’d hold onto his primeval Nokia phone held together with a rubber band forever, you owe someone some money.

Getting the iPhone means we’re both on the AT&T network now, which means I, too, had to give up my primeval Nokia phone for something with a bit more flash. It’s not that I want flash, exactly — it’s just tough to find the tin-can-and-string-era phones I’ve been using until now.

The whole process has been kind of surreal, actually. First, Gene is buying a new phone, and not just new to him, but NEW. To get it we had to actually go down to the AT&T store, where we also picked out my phone from the ten or so ordinary ones on offer.* I kept waiting for Gene to be weirded out by the situation — after all, the selection is much wider if you’re shopping at, say, the internet; plus, being followed around by a salesman has never been Gene’s favorite thing — but he gritted his teeth and stuck it out.

So now I have this flashy little number:

It’s my first camera phone. Naturally, I’m taking it very seriously. I’d like to have some kind of a theme to my caller-ID pictures. But what? Everyone in masks? Everyone holding a sign saying who they are? I’m looking for ideas. And remember that you will probably be asked to engage in whatever photo behavior you suggest.

*I should mention, I could have gotten an iPhone also but for various reasons I don’t want one.