
Which explains why I found myself convincing Mary
that she needed to accompany me to the AT&T store to change her carrier to
come under the newly unfolded umbrella that Tim and I contracted for a few
weeks ago. The goal was to have one
monthly bill for less than the four I had been paying before.
The secondary goal was for me to have a phone for
Mary that was charged and in her car instead of in her bedside table, since she
recently had three occasions when it would have saved us both aggravation had
it been at her disposal and had she felt comfortable using it.
Her previous phone was a hand-me-down from me, or
more accurately the replacement of an analog phone I had when I was working in
the corporate world. Her service was a
“lifeline” contract that allowed her three calls a month, enough for someone
who only used it on the rare occasions where she was travelling out of state by
herself, in other words about three times in as many years.

I recently heard an FBI Agent discuss Fraud, albeit
Dental Fraud, and asked him what could be done about such solicitations and he
answered, “Not much!”
A local politician, apparently attempting to gain
support from local Senior Citizens, held a Town Hall Forum on Senior Fraud that
I unfortunately was not in town to attend.
Whether that degree of interest will translate into legislation is, in
my mind unlikely, at least at the national level.
Today, Tim, Sean and I all have smart phones and
Mary has a phone that, while not smart, has loud volume and large numbers as
well as voice activation, so most of the barriers to her using it are now gone.
Let me close with a smart phone true story that was quite
humorous:
Mary and I were dining the other evening and I noticed
our Server’s badge. Her name appeared to
be “Jaime”. I asked her if that were her
real name and she said, “Yes”. I then asked her how she felt about her name and
she said she only had one problem, and that was because her last name was
Gonzalez. It turns out that you can
program Siri to recognize you and actually call you by name. When she
programmed Siri and asks, “Who am I?” Siri responds, “You’re Jaimie (JayMe)
Gonzalez, but because we’re friends I’ll call you Jaimie (HighMe). How do you terminate your friendship with
Siri? Does she have a Facebook account?
This year marks the 50th anniversary of
the conclave called Vatican II. In my
next post I’ll share some personal experiences surrounding that monumental occasion. I hope you will join me.
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