Letters to the Editor
-
Please.
I want the two minutes of my life back that I wasted reading this unbelievably superficial letter and Cary's response. Surely, other letters were sent in that warranted attention, not this utter drivel.
-
Conformity
LW, you lost me at the part where you make your wife talk on the cell phone with you because "How many people do you know who don't have cell phones?"
What kind of reason is that to insist that she endanger herself and others while driving, even though she obviously gets no pleasure or even information from talking with you during her commute? Seriously. Is that even a reason?
And, for the record, we don't have one, and I know lots of people who don't. We get along just fine.
-
texting
Is it not equally dangerous to text message as talk on the cellphone, especially when one is that un-confident in the technology?
For whatever it's worth, my parents are in their 50s, and within a month of being taught to text message I realized that they were sending each other little notes, and dirty notes I might add, and my mother was actually saving some of them for posterity.
Predictive text can make it pretty easy to send a message. You're not too old. It cuts out a lot of the idle chit chat, which may be a saving grace... She may spend an equal amount of time fiddling with the message, but you aren't forced to listen to every bit of it.
(Also, most cell phones nowadays have a way to send a voice message. You check your voicemail and follow the instructions, and you essentially record a voicemail and send it off to the person so you don't have to do that irritating little can-you-hear-me-now dance. )
Also worth noting - It might just be a subconscious thing because the phone receiver isn't actually near her mouth. Maybe try one of the larger candy bar style phones on the market? or an earpiece?
-
it really is the cell phone
Or the provider, anyway. Some phones allow two people to talk at once and some feel like you're radioing someone on Mars. Someone out there with more technical expertise than I have should be able to tell you what to ask for when you swap services.
-
Texting is fantastic
In their forties and too old for texting? Please. My partner and I are in our forties, we both have cell phones, and last month we placed exactly one phone call. But texts? Use 'em all the time, sometimes six or eight in a day. Predictive text--don't all phones feature this nowadays?--makes typing a snap, and it takes no more to time to fire off a typical exchange ("On my way. Need anything at store? xoxo" "Nope, just come home. Kisses") than it does to place a phone call, with much less public annoyance.
The letter-writer and his wife should just practise texting--even at that advanced age you can get really good at it in a day--but then she'd probably complain that she can't read the screen.
-
KISS
One word: Jitterbug
http://www.jitterbug.com/
-
Since when...
did Andy Rooney start writing a column for Salon?
What's next? Exploring the fascinating contents of one's wallet or complaining about all the colors used on labels these days?
-
Control Freak Week at SYA
So she's not a phone person, and particularly not a cell phone person. I'm not either. Hate both of them. To me, phones are not for connecting, but quickly setting up appointments to meet and communicate in person.
Why do you care? LET GO. She's got the phone for emergencies since she works late and that's enough.
This whole FALSe since of connection of people blathering about idiotic stuff on their cell phones is out of hand, giving banal relays of their daily logistics. Hang up that phone and connect for real in person.
LW has to let go of needed to make his wife be a certain way on the phone. Does he really want her to turn into a Paris type chattering away on her pink rhinestone phone about inane things? It's an emergency communication device to her, not a way to connect with her husband. Lucky for you she'd rather connect with her partner in person.
Ask yourself why you NEED her to be a certain way. Why?
-
I bet she claims to have a horrible sense of direction too
See it's not about the phone, it's about power and control.
-
oh yeah, I forgot to add
I DON"T have a cell phone either! I do fine without it. They make me have one at work, which I take to meetings outside the office and site visits, but I leave it at work at the end of the day. I NEVER USE it.
In my personal life, I do not own a cell phone and don't miss it. I like connecting with people in person, it's authentic.
-
you're old enough to remember the kinds of super-clear phone calls you could make on phones so solidly built that criminals could use them to cold-cock Mannix
OMG Jazz, thank you for that hearty laugh much needed in the AM, topped with some lovely nostalgia. Well done. I still have one of those heavey black bakelite rotary dial phones, by the way, and it was the only phone on the block that worked during the last hurricaine. The cell phone towers were out and the touch tone cordless ones wouldn't work without electricity.
-
I too miss payphones!
I still refuse to get a cellphone, though I have plenty of modern gadgets. There's just something distancing about them.
Loved the letter, but more practically, I'd advise the LW to only call the cellphone when he absolutely has to. LW, ask yourself, "if she didn't have a cellphone, would I be making this call? Would I be driving around trying to find her, desperate and panicked?" And if the answer is no, don't make the call. It sounds like you or your wife are using the cell for far more than what you feel it's needed for-- her safety and security. The less you talk on the phone overall, the less frustrated you'll be.
And the hangup/tunnel suggestion: Very, very useful.
-
You are leading a CHARMED life, LW ...
... if you can allow yourself to get this exercised over something this trivial. Lucky guy!
-
since when are people in their 40's not able to....?
This was really a fascinating letter. When I was reading it I kept thinking the people described must be at least 80. I'm 51 and feel pretty damn ageless (of course a ton of yoga helps). But just the concept that you couldn't text in your 40s is so BIZARRE. I mean, maybe if you had severe rheumatoid arthritis or something, but otherwise... As Iggy Pop said, "You don't have to get older; you just get more creased." I think this is one of those couples I meet every so often where I feel like I'm their grandkid!