My Phone is Not a Manly Phone

I was going to talk about not quitting my job today, because I didn't quit my job and I thought everyone should know. But then I had a life-changing experience on my way into the building and thought it would be more interesting than the whole "still waiting on the results of the criminal part of your background check" thing.

So anyway, I mentioned (too many times probably) my Samsung Sync red 3G media-enabled cellphone and how cool and awesome I thought it was until I started seeing other people using the same phone. Older people. Female people.

Basically, the target demographic for my phone seems to be twenty years older than me and with one more X chromosome. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

One time I rode down the elevator with a girl who was young enough to be wearing a school uniform and she was talking on a red Samsung Sync. She was telling her mother that her appointment was over and that she would meet her in the lobby.

Just as I was thinking that possibly some younger people might have been drawn to the same phone, she stepped off the elevator and greeted an older woman with "Hey mom, here's your phone."

Anyway, the phone has a weird little port on the side, kind of like USB but flattened and used for data, power, and the proprietary headset.

I've always thought the bluetooth headsets (though the Samsung Sync is bluetooth-enabled) are kind of uncomfortable looking and I can never tell if someone wearing one is able to speak to people around them or if they are taking a call and shouldn't be disturbed.

I have one of the wired headsets, and since they are distinctive I recognized one on my way into the office this morning.

A woman about my age was fumbling with the cable trying to stuff it into an oversized Coach shoulder bag which I assumed held the phone itself.

I was so relieved to not only be holding fresh delicious coffee but also to find a person born in the early to mid seventies who used my exact phone I had to bring it up. I pulled my phone out of my front pocket (belt clips for electronic devices are not fashion accessories) and waved it at her.

"Hey! I thought I was the youngest person on the planet to own one of these!"

She laughed and said (and this is forever burned into my brain), "I got the blue one."

She flipped it out of the purse and the headset wire caught on something which tumbled out and onto the floor of the elevator.

Instinctively, I stooped to pick it up. That is what you do when someone (even a total stranger) drops something. Hindered by the hot coffee in one hand and the red Samsung Sync in the other I only registered what it was as my two hands clamped around the object pincer-style and I started to return it to her.

It was a tampon. Still wrapped up, but obviously not an individually wrapped crunchy breadstick.

She took it from my hands just as the elevator stopped on the seventh floor. 

"The voice quality is really good, isn't it?" I had no idea at all what to say as I stepped off the elevator, so a lie about the voice quality which is plagued with constant wind noise no matter where I use it was about all I could come up with.

She nodded and tried to concentrate on the little TV screen over the door as it slid shut so very very slowly.

The Samsung Sync looks better in blue, in my opinion.

And I will try to squash my instinct to pick things up when people drop them forever and ever.