Nobody likes being rejected. Well, that may not be true, there are probably people out there who enjoy it. I, however, am not one of those. I think I deal with it pretty well – God knows I’ve had enough practice – but it’s still not something I enjoy.

However, lately, I’ve gotten the feeling that I’m being rejected by an entire century, and that’s really a tough one to take.

My old flip phone, which I did not love, but with which I had at least managed to have reached a kind of detente with (there’s that word of the day calendar kicking in!), had become obsolete, i.e., the manufacturer’s planned obsolescence was kicking in.

In short, I had to get a new phone.

The thing I liked best about my old flip phone was that it was simple: I could make and receive calls and voicemails, and, if absolutely necessary, I could text. I really hate texting, not least because with the flip phone, it took me forever to send one. I don’t think I ever sent one without ending up cursing angrily at the phone, at whoever I was having to text, and at the ghost of Alexander Graham Bell for starting all this nonsense in the first place.

However, I know that time waits for no one. I had seen first-hand how one of those smart phones could be really handy, especially in event of vehicle trouble. On one of our mission trips to S. Dakota, we found ourselves in the middle of nowhere, Iowa, with a flat tire and no lug wrench that would fit it.

My buddy Kyle had a smart-phone, and just googled the nearest Walmart (turned out to be around 20 miles away, in the middle of nowhere, Nebraska). Then he used the GPS on the phone to find it, and find our way back.

We’ve had a lot of these experiences in which those phones’ capabilities have made a bad situation at least a little more manageable, so, I decided to bite the bullet, get one of those, and join the 21st century.

And that’s when all the trouble started.

The lovely and talented Jess’ phone was also dropping dead, so we decided to replace both of them. We found phones that we figured would do what we needed to do, and were satisfied.

Then, the Verizon guy mentioned this “Hum” gizmo that you could plug into your car, and it would act kind of like the Onstar system that some cars have. It would also do diagnostics and send them to my phone so I wouldn’t just be driving around like everyone else, just wondering why that “check engine” light was on.

It could call roadside assistance, and I think even automatically call for help in case of an accident. Suffice to say that it did a lot of stuff that could come in really handy on those long cross-country hauls. My truck has almost 400,000 miles on it, so I said, “what the heck,” and got it too.

The Verizon guy went on and on about how easy it was to install and set up, and said if I had any trouble, to just come back in and he’d take care of it. Famous last words.

Installing it did seem really easy, but I just couldn’t get it to work. I took it in to the Verizon store, and they couldn’t get it to work either. Turns out, it wouldn’t work on my truck’s model. Aggravating, but not a show stopper.

The phone however, was another matter. I fumbled around with it for a couple days, and thought I had it under control. Then I had to clock in at work. In order to clock in, the system calls you and you answer, hit a button (any button), and it clocks you in.

The problem was, I couldn’t figure out how to answer the damned phone. It was ringing, and I was poking the green button for all I was worth, but nothing was happening. Then the system timed out (or just gave up), and I had to try it again. Same result. I was getting really pissed now, and my sotto voce cursing was becoming a lot less sotto, which was becoming pretty distressing to my colleagues in the writing center who aren’t really used to that level of vehement profanity and obscenity.

Finally, on my third try, I gave up, held up the phone, and asked loudly, “Can someone please tell me how to answer this F%#$ing thing!”

Turns out, as my buddy Caleb quickly pointed out, you don’t poke the button, you “swipe” it. “Swiping” what the hell is that about? Everything I’d done previously was done by poking it. How in hell am I supposed to know whether to poke or swipe?

Am I the only one who feels stupid just for having to ask this question?

I know I’ve always been one to lag behind the curve when it comes to new technology: I’ve always told myself I’m waiting for “them” to work the bugs out before I commit, but I’ll get there eventually. I’m not so sure about that any more.

I kind of feel like I tried to join the 21st century, and the 21st century decided it doesn’t want anything to do with me. It’s kinda hurtful, really.

I’m beginning to think the bugs are built-in, intentionally, just to keep me in my frustrated, angry, always-a-bridesmaid place (and I don’t look good in tickle-me pink taffeta – not even metaphorically).

They keep changing things that don’t need to be changed, things that there’s no reason to change, but never fixing the things that do need to be changed.

I mean, why do they keep moving the buttons around, or changing them when they worked fine in the first place, but now I’ve got to figure out which of the new buttons I have to use to do the same damned thing I’ve been doing for years with the old button, but they won’t figure out a way to stop those damned talking ads from popping up all over the place when you’re just trying to read a news article?

Why is it that you buy a new version of something you’ve been using, it takes a week to figure out how to do the same thing you’ve been doing all along?

If these tech wonks were designing cars, I’m pretty sure that every year, they’d be saying, “Hey, where should we put the wheels this year? That whole ‘one on each corner’ thing is so 20th century. How do we make it look new and cool?”

I just want to grab them by the throats and scream, “Who cares how it looks! I just want to be able to go for a drive without having to look for the steering wheel! And why is the gas pedal in the glove box and the brake in the back seat?”

Sometimes, I think that I’m not adapting to the changing times very well. All I know is that, at this rate, by the time I’m 80 I’ll need my grand-children to come over to turn the TV on or change the channel.

I’m starting to think of rejecting the 21st century right back. That’ll show it.