I have an iPhone 5s,
while Lesley has a Galaxy S5. As you would expect, these similarly named iOS
and Android devices have the occasional spat, but this time it got out of hand.
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In no time at all,
both phones got totally confused, with Siri and The Google Lady spewing digital
insults at one another and answering questions that neither Lesley nor I had
meant to pose, with random back-chatter going on and our two devices talking smack,
and God only knows what all was going to happen next. At one point, Lesley's
phone decided to play hardball and began spewing Eminem at us, which I thought
was very cruel and totally uncalled for. There seemed to be no way to get the
Galaxy to stop playing Eminem short of
throwing the phone out the car window, which I seriously considered doing. (It was Eminem, after all.)
Now, I bring this up
because as we were driving to Texas and back (the return trip lasted
approximately 327 hours) it dawned on me that we were carrying an awful lot of
technology with us. There we were, skirting portions of both The Oregon Trail
and Lewis and Clark's route to the Pacific, and I kinda wanted to feel like a
rough, self-sufficient explorer-type, ready to scale mountain ranges and cross
the prairies using just my wits -- and perhaps a tin cup and a sheath knife.
But we had in the car with us the two aforementioned smart phones (and I'm
using the term "smart" very loosely here), two laptop computers,
several converters and inverters, a Samsung Galaxy Tab Nook, and an iPad. (Not
to mention the car itself, which is one of those newfangled contraptions with
an onboard computer, but no carburetor and with the engine squeezed in
sideways. I honestly don't see how the damned thing runs at all.) Lewis and
Clark, meanwhile, actually carried quite a lot of stuff that was supposed to be useful, including a clock that
turned out not to work very well, an air rifle that kept randomly shooting
passers-by, and a folding boat that failed at every opportunity and to which
the men began referring derisively as "the experiment." (The
explorers also brought along some very harsh purgatives, which I imagine did work well, but I don't want to think about
that.)
It was a memorable
Thanksgiving, and wonderful to see "the kids," but from now on I will
endeavor to stay out of spats between rival operating systems. I mean, Eminem! That's going pretty far. Who knows
what The Google Lady might have started playing next! Kenny G.? Neil Diamond?!
Honestly, the thought is terrifying.
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