What do you do when you’re in a relationship and the other party will not negotiate, doesn’t understand the word NO, has no respect, a mind of their own, and is difficult to deal with? Does this sound like your mother-in-law? Well, then I’m sorry for you my friend, but I’m talking about my iPhone.
In therapy terms my phone seems to be “finding its voice.” But unlike previous 
parenting skills which seemed to work; the time-outs, the ultimatums, the watch your tone or you will spend the weekend dusting…nothing is working.
Phones these days have no respect.
My phone continually asks if I want to invite Facebook friends to Messenger. I tell my phone, no. It invites them anyway. It asks if I want to know of Breaking News or 
notifications from various websites? I tell my phone, no. Do I want to be reminded that a Facebook friend has a birthday? No. And yet, the beeping, singing, flashing, annoying notifications appear on the banner of my phone, regardless. In Settings, I turn them all off…again. What are my options to let it know I mean business…draining its battery till it’s at 1% and then slowly bring it back to life?
“I told you I don’t want to see that” I yell in the kitchen. My husband comes in and asks who I am speaking with. My phone, I say. He suggests I try using a nicer tone.
My phone doesn’t know its place.
I was recently texting my friend Mike G. while we were both watching Michael Conforto hit a homerun for the Mets.
My first text: Confirming!
My second text: Confetti!
My third text: OMG Mike. I’m trying to text his name and it won’t let me.
Thankfully, Mike G. knew that I was trying to spell Conforto. Conforto, Confirming, Confetti. It’s like having a 3rd person in on the conversation. Me. Mike G. and my Phone. Please get out of my conversation, I yell at my phone, trying to watch my tone. Notice the word, Please.
My phone does not respect me.
It’s helpful when you spell something wrong and spellcheck corrects it. But it’s not helpful when knowing what you want to say, your phone thinks its smarter than you are.
For instance, I text my cousin, Jackie M. asking if she has a muddler I can use. I clearly text MUDDLER. My phone asks her if I can borrow her muffler. I text my daughter: Your Grandparents are going to Disney next month. My phone overrides and texts: Your Grandparents are going to divorce next month. My friend was asking for advice on whether to send a text to someone. I texted back, MYOB (mind your own business) but my phone decided I meant, Myocardial. Which I sent. What should I do? Sit my phone in a corner and make it think about its behavior? Who is in charge here?
I yell at my phone.
I do not watch my tone.
My phone has a smart mouth.
The voice on Google Maps is becoming increasingly frustrated with me. It used to be 
when disregarding the directional prompt my phone would recalculate to what I wanted to do. No more! Now, it instructs me to make a U-Turn, again and again and again, completely disregarding what I want to do. I’m waiting for the day when through my Bluetooth I hear, Jesus, Tracy either you make a U-Turn NOW or I’m taking away your keys!
When that happens my friends, all bets are off. I will grab my muffler, make myself a drink, turn on The Mets, hope that Confetti hits a home-run, and mind my own myocardial.
“Please Lord, let this family sit anywhere except next to me.”
me on different sides of the aisle. I can’t tell where the cat’s located. It’s quiet for a while and then one of the dogs starts to whimper. Which makes the other dog bark. And then as if on cue, I hear the cat.
hours of hives and sneezing. She’s highly allergic to cats she tells me and I notice a raised red welt forming on her forehead. I keep that to myself.
The dog’s handler puts down her scotch, takes her dog out of the carrier and puts the dog on her lap. The dog is cute. The toddler is really cute. We learn his name is Jacob and the dog’s name is Max. It’s a mutual love fest and everyone around is smiling. Relaxing. Enjoying. Scratching. (the woman next to me).
week. We were cranky as we donned a hat, then gloves, then long underwear, then a scarf, then started searching for furniture to burn.
revenge on JCP&L, my mother (the 85-year-old, 4’8” Italian, jumping for joy in front of her stove, wearing an apron and holding a wooden spoon to stir the gravy) was wishing for a nor’easter every week. I hadn’t seen her so ecstatic since I left for college.
water goblets and wine glasses. And what would a table be without gold charger plates? My mother is clearly on the verge of putting up balloons and plugging in a confetti machine. I’m waiting for her to invite her neighbors.
Eating, to Italians, is a varsity sport. Just when we are done with dessert, out come the fruit and nuts…in separate bowls…one for each person.
charge of us. But that means reading before sending. And based on texts I’ve sent and received, this doesn’t happen that often.
point B. How many times have you needed to bob and weave your way around the mall, the street, wherever you are, avoiding a collision with an oblivious person, head down and buried in their phone?
member said, “this is really milestone legislation that sets the bar high for safety.” My friends, we have melting glaciers, the threat of nuclear war, 300 million guns in the USA, and white supremacy rallies. Laws are needed to help us cross the street? Seriously?!
This is the fourth time in a week I’m in my garage and standing outside my new car, anxious, a knot in my throat, a feeling of dread. Quite a difference from the love I felt at the dealership. It reminded me of the football players I liked in college. They looked good on the outside until they spoke. Then I wanted to punch them.
appear on the virtual cockpit. I don’t want to fly over Russia, I want to drive to HomeGoods.
$10K extra for technology is so worth it, said no one ever.
pressure is up to 450. Miraculously I step on the gas and the car turns on, but a green foot with an arrow appears on the dash which means I’m going above the speed limit. My car obviously has a dual personality, morphing into my mother telling me to slow down. How much more did this cost me?
home.” I need to apologize to my husband. Sotto voce informs me it doesn’t recognize my voice. Then I come to a stop sign and the engine turns off.
go home. And it calculates the route home. Cue a crazed woman with a bald spot on the right side of her head, doing the dab dance in the parking lot.
Sirius, set my seats and synch the climate. I am familiar with 87 possible indicator lights.
grinding halt last week. It wasn’t because I was injured and couldn’t work out, or that I gave in to my insatiable and insane craving for bread and cookies. What happened was I took a trip to California.
hydrating facial mist. They carried salads. Those of us hailing from the Garden State were dressed mostly in the latest trend from Marshall’s. Our luggage had duct tape. We carried donuts and coffee. The women next to me had 6 donuts which she happily handed out to everyone around her. Jersey, baby. We share.
push-ups. I felt like Shamu and I’m the thinnest I’ve been in years. The women around the pool…they didn’t get wet. I put my hair in a bun, put on my goggles, set some gangsta rap on my water iPod, and swam laps. Jersey, baby. We get in the pool.
she wanted the gluten-free option? Or just asking me, the fat sista from New Jersey? Finally, I said, “Look…go to the kitchen. Find some Italian bread, and bring me the entire loaf.” Jersey, baby. We eat.
breathtaking vistas. Conversely, even in winter, New Jerseyans hike on a treadmill with the scent of that person next to us hiking on their treadmill, while gazing at the parking lot. It’s spectacularly sunny in California and everything is in full bloom. Who wouldn’t want to live on the west coast.
California where he could have pursued his passion for growing vegetables, fig trees, and flowers all year-round. The reason? He had extended Italian family in Newark. Jersey, baby. It’s never about the weather, but always about the family.
tickets to every game of the 1986 Mets-Red Sox World Series at Fenway Park. Surrounded by grieving and oh so silent Red Sox fans we celebrated the Mets win being anything BUT silent and grieving. When Bill Buckner (no relation), first baseman for the Red Sox, watched that ball go through his legs, along with a city of horrified fans, he became, and will remain my favorite baseball player of all time. And if you’re a Mets fan you know what I’m talking about.
85-year old father was very unsteady due to a bad fall and needed a cane. So instead, we watched the games on his big-screen TV.
related.
initiated the Facetime call. It’s difficult to converse; she is too busy laughing and has no idea what to do next. Turning her phone this way and that makes her face jump side to side, up then down on my phone. I get dizzy trying to follow her image. Mom, I ask, what the heck are you doing?! She replies, I’m LOLing.
places it to her ear. I hear the lawn mower, the check-out girl, a blow dryer, all sounds going on around her but I can’t hear HER. She can’t hear me and I can’t hear her. My ears are ringing. We’re like walking advertisements for Verizon…Can you hear me now?
didn’t include the attachment indicated, and oh by the way the text went to 4 people I don’t know. From my still feisty mother, “email, text, shmexts, what’s the difference.” And she inserted a red faced emoji.
my daughter is a beach. Fun for my son is anything BUT the beach. It gets a little heated between those two and telling them to face the wall and think about their behavior and tone doesn’t work anymore. My dream of being The Walton’s had faded long ago.
It’s expensive trying to be the Walton’s.
a position in California and my daughter, who would soon be graduating college, had accepted a job in Boston. Those sweet childhood years would be in my rear view mirror and my role as Mom was changing. It’s a turning of the page, I guess.
I have made of career of complaining about NOW and how it was better THEN. And based on all the positive responses I get, many of you feel the same. But it’s like we have become our parents, grumbling and saying things like….
soon as I see, “huh?” I know I’ve done something wrong. It’s also clear that I’m not quite getting through to my mother (who calls me every day, sometimes a few times a day) on the difference between texting and FaceTime. Patience I remind myself. It will help me get into heaven. My daughter says, “Nanny’s face keeps appearing on my phone during class”. Practice patience I tell her. It will help you get into heaven.
THEN, I remember being in a constant state of lost. My blood pressure rising while valuable minutes slipped away. My way around this was 1-800-CALL-DAD but first I had to find a phone booth and hope I had dimes. NOW, with GPS I’m never lost. My blood pressure remains constant while a sweet voice calmly recalculates without ever once saying “Lady, WTF?” My husband asks, “Don’t you want to have an idea of where you are going before you head off?” No. I do not.
to mention all the great music apps that I don’t mind paying for. And since everyone in my family, including my 84 year old Dad, uses my password to share their music stations it’s very eclectic to say the least. Think the following playlists: John Phillip Sousa, Lil Wayne, Rolling Stones, Judy Garland, Bix Beidebecke, Country Fitness, Akon, 50 cent, Bruce, Broadway, Glenn Miller and NO OPERA.
NOW, I can find a solution to getting oil stains out of a sweater, if it’s safe to freeze chopped liver, how to mix a Moscow Mule. NOW, we can look up a new drug for Alzheimer’s, listen to how a song is supposed to be played on the piano before practicing it wrong for 2 weeks, get a list for the best Caribbean vacation spots in December, amazing hotels, what they look like, and some reviews. We can find the weather in Canberra and pack accordingly, track a flight, find cheap gas, check the NASDAC, reserve a cab, map the stars at night and know how to perfectly poach a chicken, …INSTANTLY! (Back when I was your age we had to read a cookbook).
Aging, Kids, Family, and why we self-medicate 