[August 05, 2011] Grayson County News-Gazette, Leitchfield, Ky., Theresa Armstrong column Tweet Aug 03, 2011 (Grayson County News-Gazette - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- I never really considered myself computer-challenged. Heck, I was part of a team in the Navy that put the first bookkeeping computers on the surface ships for ship's store inventory. That was in the mid 1980s and we installed what was then called a 486. We had one in the office and I played around with it because part of my job was to teach the other sailors how to use the computer. Windows had not even been invented yet. Then my ex-husband became a computer tech and we always had the latest and greatest computer system. He had networked five computers together in our home before it was being done in businesses. When I started at the paper I adjusted to the MAC very easily. It was the same way with the cell phone. They had not been out long before we had one. That was an easy adjustment. The only real problem I had was keeping up with it. I was forever forgetting it at home or leaving it in the car and missed calls all the time. Just like the rest of the world, over the years I have come to rely more and more on my cell aEUR"phone and I really liked my little blue, flip phone that I could dial to make a call, receive a text message when necessary and sometimes even answer the text. That little blue phone and I have been through a lot together. I left it on top of my car one time and two weeks later I got a call from someone, at least a mile from my house, saying she found my phone when she was cutting the grass. It had rained several days but my old faithful phone worked like always. Another time, I dropped it in the water bucket when I was watering the calves. A night in rice to dry it up and it continued to worked nicely. I cannot forget the time the dog tried to eat it. We were at the barn after spending an hour or so in the field looking for calves and cows and I left my phone in the cupholder of the Kubota, along with a pack of gum. For some reason, I walked over to the Kubota to get my phone and noticed it missing. I was sure I dropped it in our adventures in the field so we went over every inch of the farm. We stopped and called it every three feet or so, hoping the ringer would lead us to the phone. After about an hour we gave up and headed back to the barn. We stopped in Christopher's driveway and dialed the phone one more time. Suddenly, I heard the ringer and there in the grass lay my blue cell phone. There were several teeth marks that were not there before so I knew how my phone ended up there. But it still worked nicely... until last week. The battery in the phone would not keep a charge and my trusty blue phone had seen better days. I went to the phone company and purchased a "SMART PHONE" Little did I know the smart in "smart phone" meant it was smarter than me. The first time I tried to call Troy the next morning I called someone completely different. My daughters both knew how to work it and thank goodness for Morgan she has installed several apps (don't ask me what an app is) and showed me easier ways to call people. I thought I was getting a pretty good handle on how to use it until last night. My four-year-old granddaughter, Amie, got into the car and picked up my phone. I thought it was safe because you have to push a button to turn it on and then slide you finger down the screen and then push another button to actually make a call. Within seconds of picking up the phone my granddaughter turned on the button, slid her finger down the screen and called her mom. HUMMM...it was bad enough when I had to admit the phone was smarter than me, but do I really have to admit Amie, at age four, is smarter than me too? To see more of the Grayson County News-Gazette, go to http://www.gcnewsgazette.com/. Copyright (c) 2011, Grayson County News-Gazette, Leitchfield, Ky. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]