This Is Not the Smithsonian

Of all the annoyances and indignities that 2020 had to offer, the one that drove me over the edge was losing the WiFi connection on my iPhone. 

The connection started going on the fritz in early December, perhaps coincidentally after I installed the latest software update. I tried all the "fixes" the Internet could suggest, with varying success, for about six weeks before the connection completely vanished, most likely never to return. 

During that time, I flirted with the idea of getting a new phone. All of the notices and alerts from the phone company suggesting that I was eligible to upgrade the devices on my account started to intrigue instead of irritate, although I did find it suspicious that something broke on the phone right as I paid the final installment on it. 

However, I decided that I was already paying for a data plan that I hardly ever used and I had three other devices with working WiFi connections, so it wasn't going to be an extreme hardship to be unable to immediately fulfill every whim via the small black box in my pocket.

Reader, I lasted about a week after I ran out of data. 

I suppose I could have adjusted some routines and preferences and carried on, but I had been adjusting routines and preferences and carrying on since March 12, 2020,* so my tolerance for this new bullshit was pretty low. 

Despite being sorely tempted by the iPhone 12 mini (It comes in green!), I decided it would be more practical (read: cheaper) to get the SE 2020. I compared the specs, and I wouldn't really use half of the fancy features on the 12 mini anyhow. Two days after I finally pulled the trigger and placed the order, I was unboxing the SE 2020 and accessories. (Because of course it's about a half-inch too tall to fit any of the other cases I have knocking around. Grrr!) 

After eliminating the bulk of the air bubbles that popped up no matter how carefully I applied the screen protector, I went through the usual setup process. The WiFi connected immediately, to my relief. The part I was dreading  — activating the phone service — did not go as smoothly. 

I'm sure that on some level I knew that the SIM card from the old phone needed to be inserted into the new phone, but it didn't really occur to me at the time to do that. So, I got super-frustrated when I kept getting error messages while trying to activate the new phone via the phone company's web site. Eventually a customer service chat window popped up; during the course of our conversation, the person on the other end shared that helpful hint about the SIM card switcheroo. Doh! 

Starting fresh (as opposed to installing the backup of my old phone) meant that the next few hours were spent happily downloading and installing my favorite, must-have apps as well as a few fun ones I had forgotten about over the years. (I was a bit giddy over the fact that now I have 128 GB instead of 32.)  I also selected which podcasts I still wanted to listen to (even recycled episodes of Car Talk are more interesting than doing the dishes in silence) and downloaded the recent episodes I'd missed. Then came the flurry of security notification emails, as every app I logged into had to let me know that someone using a new device logged into my account. 

Once I had everything fixed up mostly the way it was before, I had to face facts: I have too many exhibits in the Apple wing of my personal museum to outdated technology. I sent my sister this photo:

My collection of i-devices**

From left to right:

1. The just-out-of-the-delivery-box iPhone SE 2020
2. The iPhone SE (1st generation) with the broken WiFi antenna
3. The iPhone 5s with a loose screen
4. The iPod Touch with a broken display 
5. The iPod (3rd generation) that barely holds a charge  

If I were a different kind of nerd, I would figure out a way to Frankenstein items 2 and 3 into a device that has functioning WiFi and a screen that you can't peel back like the lid on a yogurt container. I would also be able to reattach whatever loose cable is making the display on item 4 into a grayish-white blur of horizontal lines. Instead, I've been able to use items 4 and 5 as digital jukeboxes by hooking them up to some clock-radios. (The setup in my bedroom involved leaving the oldest iPod constantly plugged in to a charger and connecting it to the clock-radio via the 3.5mm headphone jack. Then in the office/craft room/spare bedroom, I had the iPod Touch set up to play songs on "shuffle" whenever the clock-radio was turned on in iPod mode.) After some extensive brainstorming, I'm unable to come up with a scenario where items 2 and 3 can be of similar use. So, I'm probably going to start researching the best way to recycle them. 

Getting rid of them is going against all my hoarder tendencies, but I need to borrow from my mom's new attitude of "This is not the Library of Congress. I don't need to clutter up my bookshelves by keeping every book I ever had just in case I might want to read it again sometime." Of course, she had to repress her hoarder tendencies and adopt this approach during her Great Purge of 2017 (Drink!), which is when my parents were packing up and moving out of their home of 40 years. I misremembered it as her saying "This is not the Smithsonian," though, so hence the title of this post. (Speaking of misremembering: See also this post.)

Speaking of this post, though: Sometime during the two days between ordering and receiving the new phone, I got the idea of counting up how many i-whatevers I have had and when. Part of my research involved skimming old blog posts (like this one) and thinking (a) I'm hilarious and (b) this is helpful documentation of when things happened and (c) maybe I should get back in the habit of posting again in 2021. We'll see.   

* I was supposed to go to Cleveland to cheer on my OHIO Bobcats in the second round of the Mid-American Conference men's basketball tournament, but it was cancelled. The first of many, many, many, many, many, many things on my calendar to disappear in a puff of respiratory droplets. Thanks, COVID.   

** Not pictured: My iPad Air (1st generation) that still connects to WiFI and has a functioning screen. Although I've probably jinxed that now.