No longer a contender

I've taken myself out of the running for "last person standing without a smartphone."

For years, I've never been able to justify having a smartphone because:

1. Cell service at the ranch is a crapshoot. 

Sometimes I get one bar of service; most times there's no service.

2. I rarely leave the ranch. Having a monthly bill for something 

I would use the 8 hours a month I'm not here seemed ridiculous.

3. My burner phone has served me adequately on the rare occasions I've needed it,

and it's fun to pretend I'm Walter White. 

Then my ipod died and I could no longer listen to audiobooks.

Then I wanted to use Instagram, which doesn't play well with my desktop.

Then my friends started harassing me. 

I'm talking about you, Ethel and Brigitte and Danni.

And Danni. And Danni. And Danni. She was relentless on her recent visit

and convinced me that a smartphone would be useful even without cell service.

I could run it off my wi-fi and be less of a Luddite.

On the left, my burner phone, with its history of numbers written in silver Sharpie on the case,

because no way in hell could I remember them, or how to answer a call for that matter.

 On the right, my new-to-me iphone 6s, in its Barbie-doll-esque case. 

(Rose gold is a lovely color on a metal phone, not so much on plastic.)

I spent too many hours last weekend setting it up.

It now does everything but let me call someone.

One needs a SIM card for that, which won't get here for another week,

because one can't order a SIM card until one actually has a phone with an IMEI number

to provide to a carrier who sells SIM cards. 

Did you hear how loudly I typed that sentence?

Danni calls it "angry typing," having borne witness to
a live chat session between me and the ATT guy.

But who cares about using a phone to make calls when you can use it to listen to audiobooks

while walking your dogs, say nothing of taking pictures of your dogs at the same time.

Too bad there's not an app for untangling leashes.

 Alan: Your finger is covering the lens.

Me: Don't be a smartass. I'll get the hang of it eventually.

 The camera quality is good enough for internet things, and

Alex is getting very good at her sit-and-stay, don't you think?

We still have a ways to go on the leave-my-stuff-alone command,

as well as how to use the iphone camera in low-light conditions.

 One weekend with a smartphone and I've already turned into one of those people

who gets so distracted by the stupid thing that she forgets what's important,

like supervising her puppy.