New technology is a dangerous thing!

A month or so ago, daughter #2, Karen, upgraded her regular cell phone to an I-phone.  This set off a bout of monumental phone envy in her two sisters and I, the likes of which had never been seen before!  Daughter #4, Jamie, has had a Droid for two years and she laughingly wondered what all the fuss was about.  But with her living five hours away, we were not constantly bombarded with all the wonderful amazing things this phone would do.  When we would get together we would all gather around Karen as she showed us all the cool apps that she had downloaded.  This phone could make all aspects of life better and easier!  With the cardio app, one could effortlessly get in shape.  With the grocery app, our pantry shelves would magically stay full.  With the stargazing app, we would know the name and location of every constellation in the sky!  There was no limit to what this phone could do for us.  We would longingly sigh and resign ourself to the fact that we all had to wait until our contract was up.

I found out by accident a week ago, that my contract actually was up and I was eligible for an upgrade!  Without delay and with absolute giddiness, I got on the internet and ordered the I-phone I wanted and when it arrived high tailed it to Karen's house to learn how to use it.  One of the coolest things about it is that you slide your fingers across the keyboard instead of "typing".  Although a little tricky to learn, it was fun to do and made texting much quicker.

All was well until last night.  I was watching the Super Bowl with Mark and got a message from my 12 year old granddaughter Lexi.  I quickly "slid" her a message back and sent it to her.  I love the slide and wanted to play with it some more.  So I decided to send a message to Mark's phone.  It started out "Hey Baby------------------",  you fill in the blank.  I chuckled as I hit send and watched him at the other end of the couch.  His phone didn't ring.  I thought that's weird so I sent him another one, much like the first one, only better!  Again it didn't ring.  Suddenly I realized I had not told the I-phone what number to send it to. Starting to panic I looked and sure enough, at the top of the screen  it said "Sent to Lexi", and at the bottom were the two messages, while perfectly appropriate for my husband's eyes, were definitely not for my granddaughter's eyes!  

I jumped off that couch so fast and ran into the other room.  Of course in my panic I couldn't remember how to work the dang phone.  I finally found Karen's cell phone and dialed - no answer.  Pacing back and forth, I found her house phone and called it.  Thankfully she answered.  Of course, as mortified as I was, it took me awhile to get out what was wrong.  When I finally did get out what was wrong, she was just thankful everything was all right.  I was so upset she thought someone had died!   She said she knew that Lexi had just gotten in the bathtub so she thought she probably hadn't read them.  She went and got Lexi's phone and came back and laughingly told me that they were erased and Lexi hadn't seen them. Then, knowing that no harm was done, we laughed and laughed.  She assured me that even if she had seen them, that Lexi knew between married people....., I interrupted her and said, "I know, Karen, that was plan B, but I sure was hoping that we could get it taken care of with plan A, and thank you Jesus we did!

So, lesson #1 when it comes to "smart" phones: They aren't smart enough to telepathically know who you intend to send a message to!  And lesson #2:  In the hands of this middle age woman, they can be a dangerous thing, very very dangerous!!