Shades of Star Trek

This humorous piece was written by my grandmother, relating her experience when looking to purchase a new cell phone last year. (By the way, for when you encounter the name "Melody"--that's the name of one of my aunts.) Enjoy! :)


All I wanted to do was pick out a new cell phone.


If I renew my Verizon contract for two years, which I had planned to do anyway, I can have practically any telephone I want for free if I buy online. So I am perusing the Verizon web site while talking on my elderly Motorola cell phone to a customer service representative. She says she can't renew my contract with my present telephone because it lacks GPS capability, which is required for 911 operators to know where I am. I am flabbergasted! "What!?" I say to her. "Do you mean these new cell phones know where I am all the time? How can that be possible? Half the time I don't even know where I am, and you're telling me all I have to do is ask my telephone and it will help me find my way home?"


"Absolutely," she assured me. So these new phones are smarter than I am! I'll never get lost again!


("Mom, I think we must have taken a wrong turn."
"Melody, just ask the cell phone how we managed to go two hours out of our way, and how to get back.")


But that wasn't the end of the surprises. I noted that most of the phones are equipped with a Blue Tooth. Now I don't want to sound old-fashioned, but I always thought white teeth looked pretty good on most people. And I told the CS Rep as much. She explained what the Blue Tooth is for, but she couldn't tell me where it got its name. How something that hangs on your ear got named a Tooth I'll never figure out.


Further down the list of the latest features, I ran across a couple of phones which boasted "removable memories." Really, at my age I struggle with half my memory feeling like it has been removed on any given day, so why would I want a telephone with the same problem? Again, the CS Rep (trying to keep a straight face, from the sound of her voice) told me that "removable memory" really refers to "additional memory", stored on a tiny little card that fits into the tiny little cell phone. And when she told me how much memory can be packed onto that tiny little card, I knew -- I just KNEW -- that the Star Trek age is just around the corner. One day soon, I will be able to just slap the Communicator button embedded in my chest, and my blue tooth will activate my GPS and it will all be recorded on my removable memory card. I wonder if I will be able to remember where I put the card?