Whenever I’m asked about the most significant scientific or technical advance during my lifetime, I immediately think of e-mail.
I find it incredible that you can log on to a computer and instantly communicate with someone on the other side of the world at no charge.
E-mail does have its dangers.
Before I discovered e-mail and I was irritated with someone, I would write a letter venting my anger and then tear it up or not mail it. You can do that with e-mail but you have to be certain that you hit the delete button and not the send button, otherwise there is no recalling it.
You also have to be sure that if you are on a group e-mail that you don’t refer to anyone else on the group e-mail in less than flattering terms when you reply to someone else, since they will be included in your response.
My late sister, Mary, once referred to the leader of a minor political party as an “expletive deleted” moron while replying to me on a group e-mail that he was also on.
My telephone rang instantly with the query “Am I the “expletive deleted” moron she is referring to?”
“No,” I replied, “there is another one.”
Since there were only the three of us on the e-mail, he was not convinced.
Clearly, he was smarter than Mary had given him credit for.
It took a lot of hand wringing and apologizing but eventually he was placated and I didn’t lose their endorsement.
Which brings me to the subject of Facetime calling.
Up until this week the only person I facetimed with was my four-year old granddaughter, Claire.
Claire started facetiming with people while riding in the car with her mother doing errands.
I always know it is her calling because she holds the phone in such a way that you can only see the top of her head from about half way up her forehead.
Claire doesn’t just limit her conversation to the person she has called. In my case, she will demand that I call Terri into the room along with our two dogs and assorted barn animals so that she can see and talk to them too.
I find the whole experience of Facetiming unsettling and distracting because it involves trying to carry on a conversation with someone whose face is staring at you out of the screen on your cell phone while your own face is staring and talking back at you out of a little tiny screen in the top right hand portion of the screen.
It’s enough to make one seek counseling or medication.
This past Tuesday, my phone rang and I was getting a facetime call from my friend and former law partner, Chris Wiles.
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked as both of our faces stared up at me from the screen.
“Trying to learn how this phone works,” he answered.
“Well, hang up and call me back normally,” I replied, “this is too creepy.”
“Okay,” he said, and the screen went black but the line was still open.
“I thought you were going to hang up,” I said into the phone.
“I’m trying to,” he responded” but I don’t know how.”
After a minute, I heard him say to someone, “Can you show me how to end this call?”
The phone went silent.
A couple of minutes later he called me back without the Facetime feature.
“Don’t ever do that again,” I said.
“I won’t,” he replied.
“I don’t think either one of us has a face for Facetime,” I told him.
He agreed with that.
After we had a chance to catch up and set a date for lunch, we hung up.
On my way home, I stopped at the post office and bought two books of forever stamps.