October 16th, 2008

...now browsing by day

 

October 16 2008: Death of an old friend by obsolescence

Thursday, October 16th, 2008
We have a giant old horse. At 25 years old, she’s one of the oldest mares at our farm. She’s the mother of Legend, one of our youngsters now owned by Darlene B who lives in Hawaii, a climate not unlike our own – for about a day of the summer…. Her name is Annie. She’s one of a rapidly disappearing generation of old Tennessee Walking Horse foundation blood and as such is quite valuable. To the new breeders and riders of today she’s not “pretty.” The horses of today are bred to look smaller, leaner and sleak. She is none of those things. I tell her she’s only missing her Budweiser wagon. If she were human, she’d be called one of the “greatest generation.” She’s an old performance horse – the high-stepping powerful horses ridden by trainers dressed in fancy clothes and trained to win. She’s here is to spend the rest of her days in well deserved, hard earned retirement. Her days now are munching hay, anxiously awaiting grain time and enduring our hugs and rubs. Other than that she’s left alone – a stately old queen of the pasture.

Where’s this going? Today marked a sad day in the annals of this cellular carrying cowboy. A cell carrier, we’ll call them CellularOne, forced me to give up my Annie phone today. Big, black, and digital, it has apparently overstayed its welcome on CellOne’s network. They tried to force it out of my hands last year and it didn’t work. This year they told me they’re doing away with the entire digital network in a massive attempt to get me to give up my tried and true Annie phone. While most folks have gone the way of the new breed of sleek, slim new flip phones I clung doggedly loyal to my Annie phone swearing CellOne could have it when they pry it from my cold digitally dead fingers. You clinical folks will find that last sentence even funnier when you think about it. Well today was the last day. She’s now disconnected and officially retired. I liked the phone so much I had another brand-new one in reserve in the event something happened to the Annie phone and she couldn’t be saved – her soul would live on in her replacement. It was not to be. sigh.

While I vowed to hate my new flip phone it’s stereo-sound symphonic ring, color displays, built-in camera and useful tools such as a clock that tells me the time around the world, built-in calendar for monitoring so that I don’t go over the stingy amount of minutes that are part of my new plan at an exorbitant rate they extort by luring you into things like internet on your cellphone if you have the patience to sit and stare at the little screen. I loaded up my farm website just for fun, darned if the thing didn’t actually work. I took pictures of everything as I walked around the grocery store today. So as you can see, it has its practical applications. Actually I can take pictures from the pasture and send them to you.

With a sorrowful heart I bid my Annie phone a well-earned retirement…I have to go now, I found you can download expensive ringtones so that you don’t have to be like everybody else downloading expensive ringtones…

Posted in Uncategorized | No Responses »