Gina's Reverse Culture Shock Experience #2

I don’t really know if this is a separate experience since it also involves phones, but it happened my 2^nd day in Americaland, so I decided to break my techno-phobe blog into two parts.  Well, realized we could not for even one day exist as Americans living in America without Smartphones, so the first item on the agenda (after a morning detour to snorkel and watch sea turtles at a beautiful beach) was to have our gadget-savvy friend Chris help us buy Smartphones at the local Kauai mall.

Before I get further with this post, I must make a little confession.  I am a Smartphone-virgin.  Before we left for Peace Corps and they were getting crazily popular, I was the hold-out because I didn’t want to start another contract only to have to break it months later.  In Zambia they become somewhat popular in the city, but we had such minimal network coverage in the bush that buying such an expensive device would have been a waste of our living allowance.  So no, I have never in my life owned a device that has a touch screen, music streaming capabilities, or a built-in planner.  I have never in my life downloaded an app.

Just to see what was on the market, we looked online before the big purchase, because of course as unemployed RPCV’s (returned Peace Corps volunteers) we had little disposable income for fancy bells and whistles or expensive monthly fees.  We found that the iphones came out in 4-something and 5-something models, different memory capacities, and a variety of colors.  Of course there were also many iphone knock-off that of course had the same capacities but were a lot less money.  My head was already starting to spin from so many choices. 

We got to the mall playing lovely Hawaiian Christmas tunes, and a Verizon representative greeted us the minute we entered the door.  He personally shook our hands, took down our names, and told us there were 3 other parties waiting before us.  Now that’s customer service!  He said we could browse all the available models and ask our representative if we had any questions.  I didn’t look at any and just wanted the experience to be over, so I stepped out to use the restroom while we were waiting for the sales representative.  When I returned, I saw that Chris and Scott were already chatting it up with the representative.  He was showing us all the newest and greatest versions of iphones. 

Luckily our gadget-savvy friend was able to ask, “but what about all those iphone 4’s, the older model, are you still selling those?”

“Why yes, yes we are.”

“Well they aren’t at the display counter.”

“Well we’re selling them and they cost 99 cents each when you get a plan.”

Knowing that a iphone 4-something would be just as incredible as an iphone 5-something tour our Smartphone-virgin fingers (we’d never experienced versions 1, 2, or 3), Scott and I opted for the budget variety rather than the lastet-and-greatest that would cost us $100-200 extra.  After all, we didn’t really know what we were missing.  Crazily, the fine print noted that the 99-cent devices we were purchasing were worth something like $549 apiece, presumably paid for in the exhorbitant month-by-month fee.  I did not even want to do the math, but by the time the 2 years is up, we will have paid Verizon well over $2,000, about half a year’s stipend when we were living in Zambia.  “We just better not make sure they get lost or broken, since we’ll have to go back to flip phones until our plan ends.”  We were appreciative of Chris’s research, which saved us at least $200, since we didn’t even know the hidden older versions were for sale.

The funniest thing was at the checkout counter when we were asking all sorts of questions and googly-eyed like kids who just got to pre-buy their Christmas presents.  We both had to get new phone numbers.

“Sorry,” I told the clerk “we haven’t had phones for the past 2 ½ years.”

She looked at me blankly like “which planet did you come from?”

I further explained, “ we were living in Africa for the past few years and just used this little thing” as I pulled out my old little Nokia and explained how easy it was to fill the thing up with minutes of prepaid talk-time.

She laughed, and by this time, several other salespeople gathered around us like they couldn’t believe their eyes that people actually lived without a Smartphone.  We were so excited to be getting Smartphones that I think all the customers looked to see what all the fuss was about.

We walked out and I started driving as Scott immediately tested his new GPS and was so enthralled with the program that we missed several key turns.  I vowed that I was going to use mine for phone calls only while in Kauai so as not to detract from the experience of this beautiful island, so I didn’t even turn mine on.

Then . . .  not a creature was stirring all through the house we were staying at and I tiptoed downstairs at 1:30 in the morning, wide awake thanks to jet lag from Thailand.  What to do?  I picked up my book and quickly put it down.  Then I picked up the magical Smartphone, found my way to Facebook, where I could actually look at pictures and type messages, and experienced love with my Smartphone for the very first time.

Needless to say I am no longer a Smartphone virgin.