Category technology

A Lesson from EZ Pass

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

I spend too much of my life stressing over details in my life that really don’t require that much thought. Thanks to EZ Pass and my American Express this might be changing. 
I started grad school as a whim. Not something normal people do, but I’ve never done anything in the ordinary fashion. The tuition went on my American Express (no interest until August 2016), along with my prepay heating oil bill for the winter.

When I first started driving to West Chester every week, I gathered a stack of singles and fives to keep in my console in the car. Toll money. There are two fairly equally ways to travel the turnpike to West Chester. One involves Route 22 and straight down, the other uses Route 78 and the back roads to hook up with the turnpike in Quakertown.

The back road method eliminates a dollar or so in tolls.

And I’m cheap.

I ordered an EZ Pass and I noticed something when it came. I didn’t care so much about that extra buck. I usually drive to West Chester on the cheaper way, but on the way home I never feel like weaving around in the dark. So I don’t.

And I refuse to stress over saving or spending a dollar. 

I’ve noticed on my EZ Pass bill that it really doesn’t force my account to recharge any sooner than if I stick to my stingy back way.

Maybe I’m mellowing in my old age.

I freaked out the first time I used the EZ Pass. What if it didn’t work? I made my husband use the ticket and EZ Pass lane just to be sure.

And that stack of $30 in small bills in my car? It’s down to $5. Most of it reallocated to the child’s lunch money. 

But it took a month before I was willing to touch it.

Technology: iPhone junkie unplugged

Angel Ackerman 1 Comment
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A month ago, I left my phone in D.C. It came home in this package.

I am an iPhone junkie.

Everyone around me knows it. I have never denied it. Earlier this summer, I left my iPhone 4 on my friend’s bookshelf in D.C. where it was charging. He mailed it to me, but since I left on a Thursday and the phone arrived on Monday afternoon, that meant five days without my phone.

Monday, while cleaning the bathroom, my iPhone slipped from my pocket and went for a brief swim. As it fell, I reached out to catch it but it was too late. Submerged in water for about seven seconds, the time and my home screen flashed at me briefly before it powered down. I sealed it inside a plastic bag of whole grain brown rice. I’m told I can’t touch it for a week. A week!

That was about 50 hours ago. I find it’s not the Facebook or the Instagram I miss as badly as the lack of information. When my husband mocked me for not knowing a 1980s cartoon monkey, there would be no YouTube search. No news makes it into my house. My favorite news sources’ tweets fall upon other ears. No texts from my father. No Facebook messages from work colleagues pushed to the forefront to let me know that extra shifts are mine for the claiming.

No impromptu photography of the ridiculous things my daughter does. No blogging of the meals we eat day-to-day for my recipe blog, http://www.angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com. My email is limited, as we don’t really have internet in the house. Those job listings I find via the Indeed app each morning… Those are far away. No pedometer to tell me how far I’ve walked or where I walked it.

It’s hard to check my bank balance, especially since I have several accounts at two different banks all of which are more or less empty. When I went to Target to buy my grandmother a new nightgown, I couldn’t use Cartwheel. Read a book? Listen to music? Nope, can’t do that, either. No maps. No easy access to my calendar, phone numbers or addresses. No GPS to tell me where I am. No apps to help me find the nearest bike path or public transports. I can’t even buy a train ticket.

I’ve been told I can do things via my phone that some people haven’t mastered on their computers. I edited press releases via the Pages app, share them as Word docs and save them to Google Drive or simply email them. I keep PDFs of my resume, favorite samples, portfolio and recent newsletters that I can distribute with a touch of my finger.

My Instagram followers and Facebook friends may think I’m dead. In a way, I am. I am using my circa 2009 Nokia flip-phone that I gave my husband after his phone went through the washing machine. The kind people who answered at my carrier’s customer service line have forwarded my calls to his line. But that leaves us one phone. For a family of three. And no landline. My daughter doesn’t even remember when we had a “house phone.” Answering machines are alien technology.

The ring tone of my ancient phone is Cake’s “No Phone.” The lyrics remind me, “No Phone. No Phone. I just want to be alone today.” I loaded it as a joke back-in-the-day when I was a newspaper reporter. In the days before iPhones, Twitter and Facebook.

But, hey, the old Nokia has a car charger.