Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Cell phones are like peanut butter cups. (Just stay with me on this one.)

Hubs got a new cell phone the other day. He spent the entire evening getting it all set up, and he loved every minute of it.

I’m the exact opposite, and it drives Hubs crazy. Here’s how it usually works when I get a new phone.

I’ll start whining about some aspect of my cell phone that annoys me. Hubs will tell me about a new phone that supposed to be super amazing and starts selling me on it. I’ll hem and haw and drag my heels, and say no, my phone is fine. But then I’ll keep complaining about it, so then I will finally cave and let Hubs do what he does best – research the latest technology and then find a kick ass deal on that new technology.

I know I’m totally spoiled since I don’t even have to think about these things, but Hubs really enjoys this stuff. In fact, I think he gets an even bigger thrill out of finding the deal than choosing the right cell phone.

A few days later, my new super amazing cell phone will arrive in a shiny box. “You’re phone is here,” Hubs will say excitedly, in hopes that I will open it. I imagine him hopping back and forth from one foot to the other, clapping his hands, and saying, “Open it! Open it!” But he’s a 35 year-old man, so he doesn’t actually do that.

“Oh, great,” I’ll say with forced enthusiasm. “I’ll get to it later.” And the box will sit on the counter for weeks with the packaging tape still intact. And every time Hubs walks by that unopened box, a little part of him dies.

He’ll say, “Mel, are you ever going to open your phone?” Then in my most noncommittal tone, I’ll say, “Yeah, yeah, I know, I will.” And like a smart man who knows me well, he doesn’t buy it.

So why don’t I just open the damn box? Good question. I know the new phone will be a vast improvement over my current phone, and once I get everything set up on the new phone I will love it. But it’s the “getting it set up” part that I dread. It’s so time consuming. I have to reinstall all of my apps, reconfigure all the settings for all my apps, and redo all the shortcuts to the apps. I have to login to all of my accounts. Then I have to reset all of my alarms, ring tones and notifications. And bleh, bleh, bleh. Hubs loves all that stuff, but it’s just not fun for me and definitely not how I want to spend my limited downtime.

After going through this exasperating experience with me several times over the years, Hubs has just started opening my new phones for me when they arrive. “I’m going to start charging the battery for you,” he says. Then even with the new phone charged and ready to go, I still let it sit on the counter for quite a while before setting it up. I’m pretty sure this makes Hubs start visibly twitching, so now he just starts the process for me. A few times he hands me the phone so I can enter a password, but he pretty much did everything else. See, I’m spoiled.

“Why do you care so much,” I asked him once, amused rather than annoyed. “It’s not even your phone.” I admit, I find it kind of funny that it drives him crazy.

Then suddenly I had the answer to my question when I recalled a similar situation from many years ago with a former co-worker. A few colleagues and I were walking over to the vending machine for an afternoon pick-me-up, and my friend, Michelle, asked me if I would get a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup for her. When I brought it back, we chatted at her desk while we enjoyed our treats. Then she did something that totally baffled me. She ate one of the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, wrapped up the other one in a napkin, and set it aside.

“Aren’t you going to eat that?” I asked her. “Of course,” she said. “I’ll eat later.”

LATER?? WHAT?? That totally did not compute in my brain. “How can you possibly have the willpower to save that for later?”

She gave me the same amused look that I now give Hubs, the one that says, “I really don’t understand why you care about this, but it I find your mild aggravation wildly entertaining.”


So yeah, now it makes perfect sense to me why it bugs Hubs when I won’t open my new phone right away. It’s his Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.