Planning your first time

Since the advent of the smartphone, I have spent the bulk of my life pleading others to take a picture before begging, "Please send it to me." From there, I would transmit the image to Brad who would then transfer it to my email (AOL--Hey! Don't judge! It's coming back into fashion.) where I would download it to my hard-drive, save in my picture file and then upload to my blog. It's a labor of love, for you, faithful blog followers.

"Don't you think that maybe it's time to upgrade your phone?" my husband asked, frowning as I vigorously shook my little blue flip-phone, Old Trusty, in an attempt to get it to work. He took the annoying apparatus away from me. "It isn't an etch-a-sketch, you know." I sighed. I'm not one to embrace new technology. I'll take an abacus any day. But during our recent failed quest to join the rest of the world mesmerized by teeny-tiny technology, Sydney and I were horrified to discover that our antiquated phones would soon no longer receive cellular signal.

So we agreed that, during my visit to San Diego, we would...sigh...try again. "Millions of able-bodied adults of more or less sound minds have bought phones without problem," I told my daughter, "We can do this." We arrived promptly when the doors opened on Saturday morning, interrupting the store manager's breakfast of yogurt with granola. Armed with a list of stupid questions, I assaulted Nile with my unique blend of charm and idiocy. Four hours later, Sydney and I were assigned the officious position of in-store greeters, had taken a smoothie break across the road,  purchased a McDonald's hot apple pie for Nile, bought two complicated phones, determined a plan best suited for my lifestyle, added Nile and his associate Gary to my Christmas card list, and was given a tutorial on something called a hot-spot. After pushing a series of buttons in a sequence that certainly must mirror the pass-code key to gain admittance to the Pentagon, Nile thrust the contraption at me. "Now you try," he encouraged. "Before I do that," I said, "could you remind me how to turn my phone on again?" It took three staples to hold my billing statement together. Nile and Gary were sorry to see us go. I reminded them that we'd be seeing them over Thanksgiving.

Sydney was snapping photos before we'd even made it to the parking lot. I shook my head sadly. Somewhere along the line, I'd failed her as a mother. "Your first time should be special," I told her. I, myself, had been planning this moment for a long time...practicing all week.

My friend Joan and I had installed a hummingbird feeder on Sydney's balcony and immediately lured in a little hummingbird named Luigi. Nasty little bugger with the heart and soul of a terrorist, attacking every other hummingbird that dared to draw near. "He's black and white," I complained. "I wanted emerald. Translucent jade. Shimmering sapphire. Instead I get a black and white bird intent on the genocide of his species." But still, he was a hummingbird, nonetheless. For a week, I sat feet from his feeder, acclimating him to my presence. Then I raised my arms, my hands close together, framing his portrait.

With phone in hand, I rushed into the apartment and stationed myself on Syd's balcony like a National Geographic photographer. Sydney flopped down on the nearby sofa and scoffed. "This is never going to work," she told me, "a hummingbird can fly up to fifty miles per hour."

"How do you know that?" I asked incredulously.

"Snapple fact," she muttered. 

Maybe she was right. Maybe I should just have wound up my lips for a selfie duck pout in the parking lot and just gotten it over with. Maybe I'm old-fashioned thinking that one's first time should be magical. And then it happened. My hummingbird hovered near. I held my breath, heart hammering. With outstretched arms braced, my thumb flicked the button. And I was forever changed. My black and white world exploded into vivid color.