My Buddy Junior

I think I may have said it before but just in case I’ll run the risk of repeating myself. I hate my phone. My new phone hasn’t stood a chance with me ever since I saw my first iPhone. I have iPhone envy.

Still, occasionally I have been pleasantly surprised to discover a new feature of the phone. I’m not much for manuals so I normally discover these things entirely by accident. So it was when I discovered I could use voice commands to call the saved numbers on the phone. This is no small deal for me. One of many indignities of getting older is the deteriorating eyesight thing. All my young life I had 20/20 vision. All of my old life I spend looking for reading glasses. Reading the screen on my mobile phone without glasses is a complete exercise in futility. Being able to simply tell the phone what to do is huge. It’s not perfect but it usually works pretty well.

Until yesterday.

I was driving home and I decided to return the call of one of my college buddies, JR. “Call JR,” I told the phone.

“Did you say call Gags?” the mechanical female voice responded.

“No,” I replied.

“Did you say Jim?” it asked this time.

“No,” I replied.

“Did you say Denise,” it asked.

Now I’m thinking it’s really off, “No,” I replied with a slightly agitated tone.

“Please try again.” It gave up after three tries.

“Call JR,” I said as clearly and succinctly as I possibly could this time.

“Did you say call Gags?” it asked and proceeded to repeat the exact same progression of wrong choices.

Then I had my “Aha” moment. “Call junior,” I said.

Bingo. It worked. Houston we have contact.