Item of the Day: Ho, Get a New Phone

Scenario: Three friends and I are at Cafe Steinhof (home of the most affordable and delicious kielbasa in Brooklyn). Somewhere between the goulash and the second round of Austrian black beer, it becomes PHONETIME. During PHONETIME, everyone whips out their personal communication devices (in this case, all iPhones) for a five minute spree of Facebook, Wikipedia, Google maps, advanced texting, intermediate sexting, and Angry Birds.

I alone leave my phone in the depths of my bag, covered in pretzel crumbs, where it belongs. You see, in a world where everyone around me, including the majority of the teenagers at my school, owns a phone intelligent enough to run a small country, it shames me to say that I have...a dumb phone.

And it's not just stupid in the sense that it can't keep up with the technology of the newer models; it actually is certifiably moronic. The prime example I have of this is my phone's inability to effectively communicate anything through text message. I can't tell you how many times, thanks to my phone, I've wished someone a "Gassy birthday!" My phone still doesn't recognize the word cupcake, despite the fact that I've typed it into its memory like 50 billion times. But probably the worst thing is that instead of the words "go" and "in," my phone automatically chooses the word "ho," so messages that should be benign end up being emotionally charged:

"Come to the party! You have to ho!" (Translation: Meet me at the frat house to make the extra cash you so desperately need, you skank.)

"Go ho the restaurant. I'll be there in 10." (Translation: Scope out the high rollers for the both of us. I want a sugar daddy to pay for my eggplant parmigiana tonight.)

"I'm going to ho ho the school now." (Translation: I should probably not be teaching children.)

I don't know where I went wrong. Maybe it was because my family didn't buy a VCR until VHS tapes were practically obsolete, or because I wrote on a Brother electric typewriter well into high school, or because I still play my Super NES from 1990 (but who DOESN'T love old school Mario and Donkey Kong??).

So, three hours ago, I took a technological leap of faith and bought an iPhone. I am arriving to the party a few years late, but now I can finally escape the shame of my old LG dumbphone.

PHONETIME at the wine bar - here I come! Who should I sext first??