Tech Note:
Ageing Gracefully
27 March 2018
ΒΆ Kathleen called, to say that she was in a meeting that was running very late. “Go ahead and have dinner without me,” she said.
She added that she wasn’t sure that she’d have another chance to call me, so staying in touch would be difficult, at least until the meeting ended. “Uh, send me a text,” I said.
“I don’t know how to do that. I could do it on my old phone,” she said, alluding to a recent loss, “because someone [me] sent me a text that I could just respond to.”
“Okay, I’ll text you now.”
But I couldn’t, and five minutes later Kathleen called to say that she was putting her phone away. It was only then that I realized that I’d been sending texts to her office landline phone, which of course can’t receive text messages. And why not, by the way, but that’s not the point. The point is that Kathleen’s iPhone problems made me stupid.
I then sent two texts to her mobile phone, and saw that they’d both been delivered. But Kathleen had put her phone away.
At about the regular time, Kathleen called to say that she was in a cab and would be home soon. I hadn’t even started dinner.
A few minutes later, she responded to my texts, with three little words.