Digressions: My Life in 500 Words Or Less

So just over four months ago I took the plunge. My other half, Rebecca, accompanied me, of course.

We got smart phones.

Yep. Finally, after years with dumb phones and moderately clever phones, we took our phones to another level.

Those previous phones served their purposes, and, in all honesty, they were all we truly needed. They were a safety net, an aid to use in case of emergency.

But about a year and a half ago, I started toying with the idea of an upgrade. I thought a new smart phone might be a good gift for Rebecca for her birthday, and in the process, I could get an upgrade for myself. But after running the idea by her of an upgrade, I discovered she wasn’t interested.

In truth, neither of us felt compelled to upgrade. The moderately clever phones we had could text, access email, were Bluetooth compatible, had internet access, took photos and video and could download apps, among other things. None of these were of great quality, and the memory on our phones was very limited, but what we mostly used the phones for was, well, phone calls. Yeah, we were that uncommon breed that still used phones as phones rather than as portable computers.

Still I had done some research on the best most affordable smart phones as well as service provider options. At the time, which was the summer of 2016, I found a phone that was listed at one website as the best smart phone for under $100.

Ultimately, last year, as Rebecca’s next birthday approached, I circled back around to asking her if a phone upgrade would be of interest to her for a birthday gift. This time she expressed interest.

So we took the plunge together. I had found a two-line unlimited data plan that included two free phones. After substituting two of the phones I had found a year earlier — one of them the original model and the other an upgraded model — for the free phones being offered, the cost of both was a fraction of what it normally would have been for one phone at regular price.

Since taking the plunge, Rebecca and I have been putting the phones through their paces. Because these phones have bigger memory, unlimited data and much better cameras, we’ve found more apps and used them more frequently than in the past, some of them for fun and some of them for practical purposes.

We navigate to our destinations by phone, post better photos to social media quicker and voice search the internet.

But also we’ve been doing a little catching up.

So if you’re driving around downtown Elizabethtown and see a couple wandering around, gazing at their phones, take a closer look. It might be some other couple who are catching up like us, but it just might be this couple wandering around the 21st century to catch Pokémon.