The Muddled Male

The Siren Call of Things 

Bob Stevens, The Muddled Male

         Ann and I continue to struggle over our different visions of life.  I like things, especially new things.  And I really like new things that are digital, like the latest, new phone.  Ann, on the other hand, likes things that are old, like me.  Well maybe I exaggerated a little there with the “old like me part,” but she does like old things and would rather keep an old cell phone forever rather than to go through the pain of learning how to operate a new one.  She had a flip phone that was so old that the spring on the hinge was completely worn out and she had to hold the lid up with her thumb while talking or it would fall down and end the call in the middle of a sentence.  I got her a new flip phone which she loved and hated.  She loved it because it only cost ninety seven cents.  She hated it because there was a push-to-talk button located on the side exactly where her fingers grasped the phone.  That wouldn’t have been a problem except we didn’t have push-to-talk service, and each time she accidently touched the button, the phone came up with a message that we would be hit with an outlandish charge unless we gave up our first born for a push-to-talk contract.  And so like the thoughtful, caring, loving, devious husband that I am, I offered to give her my iPhone 4s which would bring her into the modern world of convenience and .glitz. 

            Now it’s not my fault that giving up my phone in such an unselfish manner meant that I had to purchase a replacement just as the iPhone 5s was available for sale.  And how was I to know that they were selling gold colored ones which meant that my glitz exceeded her glitz, causing Ann to immediately assume that I had given her my phone only because it gave me an excuse to buy a newer model.  Then she figured out that I had carefully spaced our phone contracts out so that I would be eligible to buy a phone every time a new phone came out.  And now she wants to go back to her old, worn out flip phone and leave the modern world behind just to punish me.  It’s tough to be a husband.  I should have known that Ann would figure me out.  After all she’s a mother, and mothers always know.  I guess life is not always fair.  But it is always worth it.  Happy Thanksgiving.