Call me everywhere, anytime

JAKARTA (JP): Communication is something these days. Scientists always try to invent something that can make our communication to each other easier, and make our private space smaller than the size of our ear wax. Imagine that 10,000 years ago people had to travel 100 miles by foot just to have some chit-chat with their neighbors, and then being eaten by a T-Rex on the way home.

Then came the telegraph. People no longer had to travel so far to tell their friend that Bloomingdales had a 50 percent discount; they just had to learn a new writing style called Morse code. And just when children were still wondering why they had to learn the alphabet instead of Morse code, along came the telephone. This tool was really some improvement in our technology.

People could really interact with feelings for each other; we could hear what other people said, their laughter, their tears. Really, that was satisfying enough for me. However, our scientist people did not think so. Apparently, these people still wanted us to spend more money on their innovative products. It is fascinating how people found so much stuff just to make so many improvements on them that the original stuff looked like some tools from the Stone Age.

Now it is time for the hand phone, or mobile phone, or cellular phone, or the things in your hand that you can speak to, or phonenalicious whateverocious. I recently had the urge to buy one for my working man needs, which is to ask permission from my parents to come home late. So there I was, the cell phone virgin, searching for the phone that suited me best. Unfortunately, like skin lotion, there were too many types and brands that I did not understand, but I knew how to choose the one for me. I am not gonna tell you how, but I will give you a little hint: it involved "eeny meeny minee moe".

So I went down to a cell phone store. The trouble was that I never had had one, in fact, I had never operated one either -- and cell phones were not a very new form of technology anymore. They had been around for about five years. I did not want to look like a hillbilly by asking a stupid question, so I asked the sales assistant everything I ever knew or heard about them. But somehow, by the way the salesperson talked to me, I thought he knew that my knowledge about cell phones was less than his knowledge about the galaxy Xornia.

I think he figured it out when I asked him where to insert the coin. But I did not back off; I still pretended I was bored by his explanations, as if I had already heard all of them. After I was sure that I was confused by his explanation, the salesperson gave me the cell phone.

Now I have my own brand new exclusive high tech state of the art superior communication device (that's what the salesperson said). It has so many functions on it that it can replace your private assistant. But I still don't think it can give a back massage the way she does.

Finding the SIM card is not that hard (for our cell phone avoider, it is the card that gives you your phone number), because fortunately, in Indonesia you can only choose between three GSM providers. However, choosing the number can make your brain shrink. Unlike your home phone number, the number of the cell phone given by these providers ensures that you do not have a photographic memory by giving you more than a 10 digit number.

I always try to choose one that I can easily remember, like for instant 0812-254738. You can easily remember it by this way: eight plus two is 10, reverse it to 01, combine them and you get 0812. Then it's followed by 25 which is four plus seven by three minus eight. Simple isn't it? Nevertheless, you cannot always get that kind of number. I guess people just have to take a difficult to remember number like 0816-300400. You just cannot do arithmetic with that.

Back to the phone. Let me describe to you what is on the menu: call divert, call waiting, call identifier, short message service, voice message service, voice mail, caller groups, phone book, calculator, clock, alarm, calendar, reminder, infra red, and the most important feature: games. Yup, those are all in there. Just do not ask me how to use them -- I am still trying to figure out how to switch that thing on. I do not understand how they can put all of them in that tiny little thing. I guess it is just the wonder of technology. I am sure in a couple of years we could have our shirt button receiving our fax and toasting a sandwich while it is feeding our dog.

Learning about this kind of technology is like investigating a new species: you don't know where to touch and when it's gonna bark. Of course there's a manual book that came with it, but I'm a man; men don't read instructions or manuals, men don't ask for directions, men just go by trial and error, and then buy a new cell phone because they broke the old one. However, I do not think I am a 100 percent real positive man anymore, because my phone is still working somehow. Yes, I played around with it by trial and error for three days, which caused me to accidentally call Bill Clinton several times and be offered a White House intern position for this summer. And I finally completely understand how the cell phone works. I just still have to figure out one thing, where the damn coin hole is.

So, that is my story about finding a new phone, and while I'm writing this I heard that scientists have invented a new kind of phone that can make my brand new exclusive height tech state of the art superior communication device look like a stone pot.

-- Effendi