I am not built for this century, y’all.
Yesterday, my hand-me-down iPhone permanently turned itself off. Assuming it was some kind of charging issue, I cleaned myself up, went through my usual morning rituals, and trucked over to the nearest Apple store to get a new battery.
The opening conversation between myself and the smiling employee nearest the door made it painfully clear how out of my depth I was:
“Hello! How can we help you today?”
“Hi, I just need to get a new battery.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
“… To buy a battery?”
Still smiling but gritting her teeth a little, the employee directed me to the back of the store, where another smiling employee pointed me to a third smiling employee, who took my phone number and email address, directed me to a bench, and announced that someone would be with me in five minutes.
After twenty minutes or so, a fourth smiling employee took my phone upstairs (where the wizards live?) and discovered that the issue was the logic board, not the battery. The phone would need to be replaced. Two more smiling employees later, I was informed that my current data plan was not compatible with the phones they carried, so I would have to switch to a different plan, except that could only be accomplished at an AT&T store.
Following their directions, I journeyed to the AT&T store a few blocks away, which turned out to be a franchise — apparently, only a corporate store could help me. The refreshingly surly employee on duty explained how to get to the nearest corporate location, which was another mile down the road.
I arrived at what I hoped was my final destination, walked inside, and, as calmly as I could, trauma-dumped on the very nice lady at the reception desk. She had me take a seat and went over all my options, and we were literally seconds away from booting up my new phone, when she squinted at the screen of her tablet and went, “Wait… how long have you had this phone number?”
“Fifteen years,” I said.
“Oh, no,” she sighed. “Your number it too old to transfer to a different plan.”
Running a quick mental checklist of choices and settling on plowing ahead over upchucking or sobbing, I inquired as to what would need to happen for me to get a phone today.
“You could go to Best Buy or Walmart and buy an iPhone there, and then bring it back here, and we could set it up for you,” she said. “But you wouldn’t be able to finance anything, and the cheapest available iPhones start at $600.”
“Okay. What else could I do?”
“You could get a pre-paid Android phone from us. The least expensive we have in stock is $140.”
“Sold,” I said.
So she went to the stockroom, came back with a phone, slipped in the SIM card from my bricked device, and things finally started working.
“Alright!” she exclaimed triumphantly. “All that’s left for you to do is log into your Google account.” She handed me the new phone, and I typed in my username and password… and received a message that since I was attempting to log into an unfamiliar device, I would need to complete registration by opening the Gmail app on my iPhone.
At which point I just quietly gathered my things and went home.
After several attempts and only moderate screaming, I was able to verify my identity via my laptop, and I’m currently in the process of resettling my entire existence onto a gadget with minimal storage and an operating speed just slow enough to trigger my anxiety disorder. It was only after I’d sent a couple of test texts and made sure I had some kind of access to TikTok that I realized something kind of important.
I hadn’t thought about drinking the entire time.
Which I know seems like a no-brainer, but hear me out.
Back when I was first getting sober, I’d listen to people in 12 Step meetings share the gory details of various crises, inevitably ending their tales with, “… and I didn’t even think about drinking!” To which I would silently shriek, Then why won’t you stop talking about it?! But now — thirteen years later as of July 30 — I can say that I went through a frustrating, drawn-out crucible, during which time I couldn’t even call anyone to complain, while having to be entirely reliant on people who couldn’t actually fix the problem I was facing. And at the end of the day, my only libation-related reaction was, “I think I might be dehydrated. Let’s get some water.”
If this had all gone down in early 2012, I would’ve been trashed before I even made it out of the house, and more than likely, I would’ve been escorted out of the Apple store after throwing a semi-coherent but otherwise spectacular tantrum. I can only assume their security team isn’t paid to smile.
I am still grumpy about the whole affair, and I am painfully aware of just how ignorant and curmudgeonly my Gen X self is when it comes to modern technology — I feel like I should go ahead and break a hip on principle. But the reality of the situation is that I am at a place where I can successfully navigate crises of my own, not only with the understanding that alcohol is not the solution, but also without the involuntary consideration of alcohol as a solution in the first place.
I’m wrestling with a grudge against Apple that doesn’t want to go anywhere, and I never want to set foot in one of their gleaming, belligerently happy storefronts again. But at least I’m being obstinate from a sober state of mind.
Progress not perfection, as they say — I’ve got a phone that mostly works, and a brain that’s not focused on bourbon.
For both of these things, I am grateful.
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