I bought a new phone.

The phone I had was dandy, but like all computer devices, it is meant to croak at the most rotten time possible.

For most phone helots, a pristine wonder device is like getting a shiny puppy that doesn’t hack up loogies on the orange shag carpet.

For me, it means a period of anxious adjustment that ends when the phone finally dies and I have to buy another unworkable deception.

Why do you think the inventors of these machine demons sit in dark caves looking at shadows cast on the walls by a marshmallow fire and never talk to the people stumbling around in the light? The folks above are stumbling because everyone is looking down at their phones.

Let me provide a journalistic timeline to validate my unbiased point of view.

First, I began frantically searching for a phone because my evil device was randomly calling all sorts of people for no reason. At one point I was ordering a $3 shirt and the next thing I know Russian President Vlady Putin was on the line. I suspect he wanted my cool-looking shirt.

After checking around I discovered the price of a new phone was more than my first year of tuition at the U (I admit writing with rocks was cheaper and it made the baseball more exciting).

I finally found an updated Dixie cup and string for about $75. It about killed me to shell that much out, which adds up to a lot of $3 stripy shirts.

Once home I had to take my chain saw out to get the box open. Inside was a massive pile of books, some threatening, some giggly about hooking another sucker.

With a pile of screwdrivers, drills and hammers, I eventually got the thing to ring and act like some semblance of what Mr. Bell had in mind… maybe.

Then I received a call… from my daughter Katy. She was checking to see if I was taking proper care of her dog, Yodie, the other demon in the house.

As the phone rang, and rang, and rang…. I realized I couldn’t figure out how to answer it.

Let’s not put a button with big letters stating, “Push here and I will answer.” No, we wouldn’t want to do something clear and easy. Let’s be chic. Answering a phone is a perfect time for a metaphor.

At this point, I was certain God couldn’t figure out how to answer my newly buffed tin can.

After a series of threats with my motor-driven screwdriver, Katy’s voice suddenly appeared.

I tried to explain my dilemma to her, and I got the daughter tone: “Better buy some extra tennis balls for his walker.”

Eventually Katy told me the swipe secret for answering. Who thinks these things up? And who pays them to think it up?

Once I was finally provided with the secret swipe code, the reporter goddesses Sarah and Ana informed me if I swipe the wrong way I will end up on a blind date with Attila the Hun’s distance cousin – not by marriage. I thought after the Rome thing the Hun family moved to a far-off island to get tans and drink fuzzy grapefruit juice.

Now I am afraid to touch my phone. If I get the left-right swipey thing wrong who knows where I will end up, and with whom. The reporter goddesses were not very sympathetic. What would I do if I ended up on a beautiful paradise island? Sunny and happy makes me mopey.

I will never understand why we left a perfectly good Iron Age for the era of cool things that never work right. And why does no one ever tell me these big secrets? I don’t even know what a swipe is.

Don’t you think I deserved a little swipey righty (or lefty) sympathy from my star reporters?