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If_you_Give_a_Mouse_a_Cookie

If you’ve ever walked into the children’s section of a bookstore in the past twenty years, you’ll have noticed If You Give A Mouse A Cookie by Laura Numeroff. It’s a fun book that has spawned all manner of similar titles. After reading it, you have to wonder about the wisdom of giving anyone a cookie. But my story doesn’t start in a bookstore, it started on December 25th.

This Christmas I gave my daughter and someone else (who will remain nameless) an iPhone. My daughter already had an iPod, so the iPhone was an easy switch. Backup, activate and restore, no problem. Within minutes she was playing the iPhonium like a professional.

Someone else was equally excited with their new toy, but all they wanted to be able to do was have the number keypad visible so they could make calls. The didn’t want to know anything else about the many other fruity wonders. Nope, just the keypad would do.

That was the first night.

The next night someone wanted to know how to send text messages. Easy, but better if you fill in the address book. Fortunately, my daughter has quick thumbs because the numbers couldn’t be copied across automatically, and $5 later, someone was text messaging with the best of them. But that was definitely it. Someone didn’t want to know anything else. Phone calls and text messages were it.

The second evening, someone want to redeem their iTunes gift card and load music onto their phone-calls-and-text-message-is-it phone. Music was the only extra someone wanted. That was enough. Well, music and the weather. Oh yes, how about the weather in half a dozen cities across the globe. But then, that was it, it, it. There was nothing else in the world someone could want to do with a phone. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

The third night someone’s iPhone was on charge as soon as I got home. Lurking innocently underneath was a list. Of movies. Just movies, mind you. Well, movies and a TV show. But just one show. Someone doesn’t want to overdo things. A while encoding and downloading, and the movies were in place. Ready to go. Oh yeah, and the TV show, too.

The next morning it was alarms. Multiple alarms. In different times zones. With different alarm sounds. All individually enabled and disabled. I mean, everyone expects a phone to be able to do that, right?

The fourth night was spent on the video camera and editing footage. Stabilization and lighting took a while to master, but Spielberg was going to be calling soon, for sure. There was some disappointment that adding titles and scene transitions required an additional app. Oh, and it’s not HD? Shame. Thinking of shame, what about wireless backup? Offsite? Yeah, it only makes sense. Really.

On the fifth day I got a call. Despite the throbbing technology, the array of apps, and the creative genius behind what was bound to be the next Hollywood blockbuster, someone had forgotten how to send a text …

It was at this point I wondered if I would ever be able to face a cookie again.

How about you? Ever fed cookies to a mouse? Even you favorite mouse?

Cheers!

 

PS Any likeness to persons I might possibly know are purely coincidental. Ish.

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