Is it progress... or just annoying?

It was a "not so pleasant" surprise one morning recently when I discovered my cell phone had been disconnected by my wireless/cell phone service company when we changed to a new plan.

I had not been informed of this possibility beforehand and they apologized.

They explained that my phone was too old.

(This is not something a person of my age likes to hear!)

It had something to do with their equipment not working with our phones.

Although they didn't cut off my husband who has the same phone.

And of course they suggested that I could get an upgrade with a new two year contract, etc.

My old land line phone would also be temporarily forwarded to my husband's cell phone.

(Now you understand how a teenager would feel if all their calls

were sent to their dad's phone!)

But I'm impressed that the company "believed" me when I said I hadn't been told.

Then I wondered why I was so upset about the company disconnecting my cell phone without telling me.

It's not like I've always had one.

Remember the eight party phone line?

I grew up without one. When we moved to Cannon Falls we had an eight party line - where you counted the number of rings to hear if the call was for you.

Although you could pick it up and listen even if it wasn't!

And one time I recall picking it up to call out when I heard voices.

I apologized and was going to hang up when one of them told me to stay on the line because they were going to call me anyway!

But back to my old cell phone. I liked my old phone. It was in perfect condition.

And sometimes I don't like change that much. I remember years ago when I had to get a new computer and I was fussing because I wanted to keep Windows 95, but you had to upgrade.

And now that I'm busy creating new things with my Macs, I am still forced to keep upgrading.

And I loved my old phone company.

They just didn't have the ability to do what I wanted with my cell phone/internet access.

A "new-old" cell phone.

But with this new techie phone/internet stuff, I realize that I probably should have gone to Steve Winchell, local manager of KL Communications, and have him "walk" me through the process. He has "held my hand" before - like when I got my first cell phone years ago.

So now Steve provided me with a used phone and transferred my phone numbers

to it and I headed out.

While driving along, my "new-old" phone started ringing. I finally pulled over and

dug it out of my purse.

The phone's automated voice was asking me if I wanted to keep the voice prompts in Spanish or change them to English.

Since I have had one year of Spanish and over 70 of English - I chose the latter.

I didn't find any pictures or messages left on the phone from the previous owner, but just to be safe I looked up a translation program on the internet so I could say,

"Buenos dias mi amigo!"

A few years ago I had a local phone number that turned out to be the same as the National Bank of Panama.

If you didn't dial the correct number designated for that country you got me!

I got calls from all over the world!

A husband... and a phone...

But now I still just want my old phone back.

Like I said to the cell phone service company - I have kept the same husband for 50 years - I want to keep my old phone too!