My iPhone and I

My sister emailed today to say she’s considering getting an iPhone and wondered what kind of cover I have for mine. Seems her daughter (my niece) has something called an “Otter Box” for her iPhone, which apparently she drops regularly and needs some kind of super protection. I didn’t even know there were covers for iPhones, let alone a wide selection. I thought about lying and saying something like “Yeah, the Otter Box looks good, but I went with the Squirrel Pack because I always drop my iPhone on grass or carpet,” but decided to tell the truth – my pocket.

I got my iPhone about 3½ years ago, as a present from my wife for my 60^th birthday. I really didn’t need or want a cell phone, let alone an iPhone, but my wife thought that I should at least make an attempt at entering the 21^st century. For most of the first year, I used my iPhone primarily as a paperweight. But as I learned more of its functions, especially email, internet, GPS, and weather, I began using it more. At some point I even began using the phone function, though only when on trips. I’m now – three years in – using not only the phone and email and internet and GPS but also a host of apps. But no games, and definitely no texting – I’m practical, not insane.

My current usage at the end of this month is 28 of 450 available minutes (I assume that’s phone). There’s something called N&W of which I’ve used 0 of 5,000. And I’ve only used 1 of my unlimited M2Ms (whatever they are). And 0 of 4,182 ROs (and whatever those are, I lose 390 of them in two weeks, though that leaves me with 3,792, of which I’ll probably use another 0, if only because I don’t know what ROs are or how to use them if I wanted to).

So you can see that I really don’t have a need for an iPhone cover, Otter or Squirrel.