SmartPhone, FartPhone

My dumbphone finally died. Occasionally I also called it a FartPhone(tm), since the common flip phone or knockoff Blackberry seems to have become the default mobile phone of old farts like yours truly who really don’t make more than about ten calls a year and mainly want the thing in case they need to get a call on the fly from an auto mechanic, or contact law enforcement after clubbing a molester unconscious on the bike path. (Well, it has crossed my mind.)

Anyway the thing finally gave up the ghost, unable to hold a charge long enough even to reach the voice mail recording, so I took a deep breath and  got this Android thing.

I still don’t call people a lot, and I have no patience with the people in the gym who walk around staring at their phones or deafened by their earbuds. I did however sign up for Instagram, and have, as a few of my visitors will know, become an Instagramming fool. It’s all either cats, flowers, or the heart-stopping vista of every weight rack in my gym, but dang it, every time I go out for a few miles there are shoals of incredible spring flowers asking me to capture them for even a brief posterity. I sometimes feel a bit awkward, wondering who is inside the house watching me contort myself to get the best angle on their tulips or phlox, but so far no one has come hurtling out of the front door brandishing a baseball bat or cleaning implement.

This afternoon I stood up from my desk and saw a young backpack-laden woman exit the local bus, cross to my side of the street and kneel by the birdbath, squinting into the small oblong in her hand. After a moment she got up and walked off.

Apparently my iris are starting to bud. (I went out and checked, after she was gone.)

I wonder how much of this is going on.