And So It Begins

Katie and I stopped by the AT&T store yesterday. For about a month, I haven't been able to send text messages, though I could still receive them. It takes time to get yourself worked up to do something, okay?

I explained the problem to the friendly rep by the door and handed her my phone. "Oh, your mailbox is full," she said. "There's not enough memory to send or receive messages when you have that many in your inbox."

"I don't think that's it," I objected, "I can still get texts, it just won't let me send." But I emptied my inbox. "Here, let me show you the error message I get," and I composed a test message to Robbie and hit send.

"Yay!" Robbie texted back, because texting is one of our primary means of communication. The AT&T rep was very nice, and waited until I had left the store to laugh at me.

Katie insisted on loitering a while to play with the iPhone on display. She wants one, which means I get one - I can't very well buy my teenaged daughter a fancier phone than mine - but I found the touchscreen keyboard incredibly difficult to use, and kept missing and hitting the wrong letters with clumsy thumbs, and it doesn't work if you try to press with the tips of your fingernails. "Oh my gosh, I can't use this," I wailed, though Katie (who has a certain vested interest here) kept insisting I'd get used to it quickly.

Someone I once knew said he'd know he was old when a popular gadget came out that he was unable to make heads or tails of. "You know," he said, "like your grandparents with the VCR forever blinking 12:00. When something new comes out and I can't figure out how to work it, like that, I'll know... but I can't wait to see it!"

I hope the iPhone is not that gadget for me, not already, not yet, I'm too young!

Friday I visited a dermatology "medical spa" to have a mole removed, and while there I asked the doctor about how to offset the very beginnings of fine lines around my eyes that I'm beginning to notice. "I've read about retinoid cream, and how it lessens wrinkles by accelerating skin cell turnover," I said, "and I found some at the grocery store, but is there a brand you recommend?"

It turns out there is, indeed - in prescription strength, and they sell it for $83.00 a tube (but with a 20% discount it's only $66!), but the dermatologist, without half a moment's hesitation, cheerfully recommended Botox. "Look," he said, handing me a mirror, "smile, and I'll show you." He put his fingers beside my eyes and stretched the smile-crinkles apart. "Botox will just relax the muscles that squinch up your skin like that."

"I think I'll get the cream," I said, because (1) I think I'd rather get wrinkles than lose the ability to smile with my eyes, and (2) forget my incompetence with the iPhone, thinking of myself as a person who gets Botox would really make me feel old.