Gonna Party Like It's 2009!

At the end of 2004 Motorola introduced its RAZR cell phone, a thin, lightweight flip phone that was all the rage throughout 2005. All the cool kids (and adults) rushed out to buy this latest advancement in cellular technology and style. Needless to say, Mrs. and I jumped on the bandwagon . . . in May 2007. That’s when the RAZR became the free phone AT&T was giving away when you signed up for cellular service. As we’ve mentioned before, we’re rarely ahead of the technology curve.

And here we were almost four years later still rockin’ the RAZR. But a couple of weeks ago Mrs. made a confession to me. She was embarrassed of her phone. And why not? Everyone has moved on to Smartphones these days. With their phones they can search the internet, send texts, check e-mail, listen to music, play games, record videos, and even (I think) make calls. With our phones we could make calls and take low resolution grainy surveillance photos. I was embarrassed too. I mean, my phone didn’t even work in all rooms of our house. Everyone we knew had a Smartphone. We had the equivalent of carrying around a portable CD player with giant headphones. People were starting to stare. So we finally decided it was time to retire the RAZRs.

In early 2007 Apple, Inc. unveiled the iPhone, a revolution in modern technology. And yes, that was 2007, about four months before we “upgraded” to the RAZR. The iPhone became the “it” gadget to have. And all the cool kids cast aside their RAZRs (this is why they were free for us) and made Steve Jobs an even richer man by purchasing iPhones by the truckload. Apple, Inc. then introduced its iPhone 3G in June 2008, followed by the iPhone 3GS in June 2009, and then the iPhone 4, which was released earlier this year. So after some research Mrs. and I decided to make the trip out to the AT&T store and get ourselves iPhones. But let’s not get crazy, we didn’t get the new iPhone 4. No, no, no. We are now proud owners of the old iPhone 3GS, $49 each now that they need to get rid of the inventory to make room for the new model.

So we might not have embraced the latest in technology, but we did move from 2005 to 2009. And even though Mrs. is paranoid about getting mugged for her phone (no one was going to steal the RAZR unless they were heading to the Antiques Roadshow), we’re excited to finally join the Smartphone revolution. We can now join the rest of society by pretending to pay attention to our friends and family as they talk to us, all the while staring at our phones, looking for the score of the game, texting someone else, or checking out the weather in Cupertino, CA. And we’re looking forward to upgrading to the iPhone 4 in 2015.