After my garden club meeting today, at which we learned all about how to graft heirloom tomatoes, I stopped by the Verizon store to investigate getting a new and updated iPhone. The Verizon store is next to the feed store where I get gardening supplies and plants so it seemed doable.
I had done the research on the various phone deals; which phone would actually be best for me since I needed a better camera, which plan would cost the least. But I had put off doing this because of my frugality and how much I dislike the process of being in the hands of the young techies who are so smooth and fast, whipping their pointed thumbs across the screens and coming up with numbers that seem to change as I look at the screen.
My family knows that I am not good at shmoozing and hanging out, but that is just what it takes. I am good at hammering away at the bottom line.
The young man I dealt with was your typical young man who does this - slender, young, a bit nerdy, friendly. We discussed the various options of which phone would be the best for me. Though the biggest phone had some advantages, I couldn't imagine having conversations on a device as large as a toaster. So we settled on an older version, small enough to stick in the back pocket of my jeans and way cheaper, but was slightly bigger and had the updates to the camera and a few other marvels of technology, including a portable hotspot for other devices.
Now, I needed to have all the tremendous and untidy array of stuff on the old phone transferred to the new one. This required some passwords I have no clue about. No matter. My guy at the Verizon store, Greg, seemed to be able to do some work arounds to accomplish this.
All the while there was this multitasking chatter between us. After more than an hour I probably know more about Greg than I do about my own grandsons. In the course of the Big Transfer of data, Greg is searching Google Earth to locate my home. I am creeped out that Google street view is able to see our compound in such detail one can see our little dog squatting in the yard! Greg is fascinated with everything Dade City and is a foodie so we talk about restaurants.
Meantime, a number of couples as old as I am come into the store with questions about their old flip phones, and by the way, how do you turn this dang thing on? I am impressed with the politeness and warmth and patience these two guys in the Verizon store show to everyone.
By now, Greg and I are now old friends and we are trading stories about good restaurants in the Dade City environs and where the best hiking trails are. Everything from the old phone is now transferred to the new one. I will leave with directions for how to recycle my old phone.
When Greg returns home tonight, if he speaks of his day at all to his wife, will he say that this crazy old grandma of a person came into the store today, and knows about geometry - and she'll be my friend forever?? Who knows where serendipity will strike?
I love my new phone! It is almost perfectly configured and even easier than my last one.
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