A week and a half ago, my dad – he’s 72 – upgraded his circa 2002 Motorola Razor flip phone to an iPhone 6S.
Many of you are too young to remember flip phones, but those of us who do recall the maddening process of keying in full words. Those of you born after 1992: Try typing out “see you tomorrow” when the letter “o” requires a three-time tap on the number 6.
To cope, we established abbreviations (c u tmrw); not all of which are as obvious. These shortcuts have been arriving on my iphone from my dad for the past decade; Translating some of these often left me baffled. Sometimes his strategy would be to text me; then follow up with a voicemail with an explanation.
Last Sunday, we had our inaugural text convo on our matching phones while I was returning from San Francisco during that rough windstorm. My text included a long rambling plea for my daughter’s backup care after the pilot announced we would be diverted to Yakima because the wind shears in Seattle were too dangerous. (ugh. Nervous flyer here.)
His response? ….“K”.
Old habits die hard, I guess. It gets better: Click here for our Tuesday convo.
My point in telling this story? …. Change – even good change – is really hard!