Nancy Ludmerer
Cell Phones for Seniors
Yesterday I answered my phone at 7 a.m. It was the 11th robocall offering me a cell phone deal for seniors. The robot claimed this was not only the best deal of the century but the best deal since the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, who didn’t actually receive gifts of gold, myrrh and frankincense while hanging out in the manger, but instead was offered three cell phone plans — the Gold Plan having the most features, including, of course, eternal life. ‘I de-myrrh!’ I shouted before hanging up.
I’d only been 65 years old for five minutes when the calls began. ‘Who told you I was a senior?’ I demanded. The robot snickered. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ I hung up and immediately the phone rang again. I gave it my sternest stare, the stare I tried to perfect when my son (now 32) was a four-year-old hooligan. I’d read that some parents could discipline their children with a single look, and I wanted that look — a look that would strike fear in him, or at least shut him up. But I was look-less, as well as luckless, in the look department. So whenever he misbehaved in public, I had to raise my voice or threaten him that he was in ‘big f-ing trouble.’ This led otherwise doting old ladies — who I now realize were suffering from a lack of cell phones – to mutter that I shouldn’t have a child (much less a curly-haired angel like him) if I was going to yell at him. Nowadays those same old ladies would probably photograph me with my mouth open – a la Edward Munch’s The Scream — and post it on Instagram claiming child abuse.
How I long for the days before cell phones, before Instagram, before Facebook — but nobody else shares that view, with the possible exception of my husband, Malcolm. When we met, Malcolm was nearly a decade older than I, and shared my lack of — and near-hatred of — technology. At that time, over two decades ago, neither of us even owned an answering machine or a microwave – much less a mobile phone.
Remarkably the age difference between us didn’t go away, even after we married and settled down. Malcolm became a senior citizen nine years before I did – and although he resisted for as long as he could, he eventually purchased a cell phone. This wasn’t a betrayal of our shared values, mind you. He only purchased a cell phone because all of the pay phones he depended on when he needed to make a call had been vandalized, ripped out, or gone to that great phone bank in the sky. ‘Enough is enough,’ he said to me one night, with grim resolve, and the next day he went out and got one.
The way he bought his cell phone was this: He went into Best Buy and asked: ‘Do you sell cell phones?’ The salesman put his thumbs in his suspenders and said, ‘I believe we do.’ My husband asked, ‘Do you sell the kind that criminals use?’ The salesman looked my husband up and down; a sorrier specimen of a criminal, with his white socks, frayed black chinos, and horn-rimmed glasses, the salesman had never seen. ‘What do you mean?’ the salesman asked, wondering if he was actually going to get a sale out of this. ‘On TV, the criminals all have cell phones and once the crime is committed, they throw them away so they can’t be traced.’ ‘Yes,’ the salesman said, twirling his suspect-looking moustache, ‘we have those.’ ‘That’s what I want!’ my husband said. He came home bubbling with excitement, with something called a flip phone. It was red. The plan was 20 cents a minute, and the phone was $29.99.
After multiple attempts, my husband finally got the answering message exactly as he wanted it: ‘This is Malcolm — but don’t bother leaving a message. I only check messages once in a blue moon. If you don’t know when that is, look it up in your almanac. By the way, if this is an emergency, hang up and dial 911, or try my landline, or come on by 7E and knock. And if you don’t know my land line or street address, that’s your problem — you shouldn’t be calling me anyway.’
As you can imagine, Malcolm’s cell phone doesn’t get a lot of use. In fact, nine years later, it’s in the same pristine condition as when the Best Buy salesman took it out of its box. Which in my opinion is a good recommendation for a cell phone — even if it means that most of the time I can’t reach Malcolm.
Yesterday in the midst of those robocalls, after I hung up multiple times and gave the landline phone my sternest look, it rang again. I meant to ignore it, but out of habit, I picked it up. Remarkably it was a real person this time at the other end. ‘I’m calling on behalf of Cell-Phones-for-Seniors Sweepstakes and I have good news. You’ve just won a cell phone – and not only that, but you’re entitled to our Gold Plan, for golden-agers like yourself!’ I thought of screaming bloody murder or even Jesus Christ — but imagined my face on Instagram. Instead I put on my sternest stare and my sweetest, most moderate voice. ‘Do you have the kind of cell phone criminals use?’ I asked.
This time, they hung up on me.