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![The current mood of DuctapeFatwa](http://web.archive.org./web/20211226153215im_/http://moods.imood.com/display/uname=DuctapeFatwa/fg=000000/trans=1/imood.gif)
Cell Phones Are the New Barbie
Some may recall that on the recent occasion of my birthday, Madame and I were presented with new cellular telephones. This coincided with some provider changes Madame had made, for a variety of reasons, all of which can be summed up as "more services, less money."
The telephones are called Nokia 6103 and they are very modern, little, and cute. They are so small, in fact, that we were also given devices to keep them affixed to our persons, and each telephone also has its own wardrobe of clothing. Pale pink and blue for Madame, black and brown for me.
I do not believe that my telephone needs so many clothes. In fact, the task of performing valet services for it has consistently been performed by someone other than myself. From time to time either Madame or a descendant will change its vestments from black to brown or vice versa.
Madame, on the other hand, would not even think of allowing her telephone to go through a week, much less life, with only two outfits, both leather, of all things, how the poor thing must be suffering in this heat!
And so after examining the construction of the diminuitive phone-clothes, and hmmphing a bit, taking a few more measurements of her own, because fit is essential to being well-dressed, whether one is an elegant lady or a cellular telephone, she immediately set about the business of designing and creating an extensive wardrobe of appropriate rainment for her telephone, matching or harmonizing with her own favorite ensembles, and has begun embroidering at least one of them, that it not suffer the shame of finding itself under-dressed on more festive occasions.
It is just a matter of time before I find that the simple two-outfit sartorial inventory of my own phone will have expanded to include haute phone-couture suitable for any and all events it might attend, and I also know that this is only the beginning, and before I know it, each phone will have its own walk-in closet, and a jewel safe.
Speaking of jewels, as you may imagine, some of my descendants are elders themselves, and one of them was recently presented with a Bedazzler by a well-intentioned but sanity-challenged individual, and since that inglorious day, we have all been under near-constant siege, and have had to take great pains to protect ourselves from Bedazzlement, and predictably, I suppose, Madame's well-turned out telephone is a particularly sought-after target.
Madame, of course, does not object to the idea of pearls on her telephone. On the contrary, she has already begun some sketches - but as she points out, pearls are to be incorporated into the embroidery of a piece, not Bedazzled onto it willy-nilly!
That we are a family whose history includes, in every generation, a very impressive number of very gifted practitioners of the textile arts makes the descendant's descent into Bedazzlism all the more strange and alarming. Her siblings are conspiring to talk to her. Perhaps, they say, she needs counseling. They have arranged for her several sessions with one of the family's most reknowned embroidrerers, almost in a league with Madame, who has recused herself because she believes, and with good reason, that the telephone would be too much of a distraction. Just the knowledge that it, and its clothes, were nearby would be too much for the patient to bear, even if it were not affixed to Madame's person.
Madame has strong views on the affixing question. Politely declining the traditional "swivel clip" method, once the phone has been dressed in the outfit appropriate to her own attire, she prefers to wear it suspended from a gold chain worn round her neck. Or, of course, a silver chain, if the accessories of the day so decree, unless those accessories include the mixing of metals, and no doubt a host of other very important factors that I am too simple to comprehend, though I am sure that undertones are a consideration.
The younger descendants sneer at the new phones. The camera, they say does not have a zoom, and one can record only a few seconds of video, and with only 4 MB of memory, how is anyone supposed to download enough ring-tones even to keep current with a week of mood changes? But, they acknowledge, it is probably all right for us old folks, since in our ancient way, we use the phones mostly for talking.
Since so far, the only photos Madame and I have taken have been of each other, to make into our cell telephone wallpaper, I am obliged to concur with the young folks. They are quite adequate for our needs, and I am confident that by the time I ever get around to reading the FM in its entirety, they will have been superceded by even newer phones that are even littler and cuter and are capable of doing even more things, and we will also use those mostly for talking. And in Madame's case, accessorizing. Cell phones are, after all, the new Barbie.
In addition to clothing and affixing-to-the-person devices, the telephones came with dentures. I suppose it is a sort of denture, because it is called a Blue Tooth. Or something is called a Blue Tooth, which I am told is a technology, and is represented on the physical plane by a device that looks like a very old-fashioned hearing aid, and I believe it is to be worn in much the same way. It enables the wearer to join the millions of people who walk around in public apparently talking to the air like someone living with mental illness, ears adorned with the old-fashioned hearing aids.
Again the younger descendants are scornful. It is Plantronics, they say, which is bogus. Motorola or somebody makes much cooler looking ones in more colors. We had been given only one, to see how we adapt to wandering around the streets conversing with the air, hands free to hold our phones aloft to photograph something, but upon hearing that the hearing aid looking things are available in a version that is little and cute like the phone, and in a variety of colors, Madame's interest has increased. I suppose she will want to coordinate her hearing aid lookalike with the different costumes sported by her phone.
The descendants acknowledge that the Plantronics device has better sound quality, but priorities are priorities. Madame says she might not mind sacrificing sound quality either, but only if the Motorola company's smaller and sleeker option is available in the correct shade of lilac, or if she can at least make clothes for it.
We have not yet inaugurated this new technology. We are still getting used to our new telephones and their clothes, and their being so little and cute.
Since while my vision has sunk to a level that can only be called "vestigial," I am able to hear eggs being cracked in Fiji, I believe I will get a kick out of walking around the hood wearing something that looks like an Eisenhower-era hearing aid, so I have been reading up on the process of initializing the Blue Tooth.
It appears that the first step will be something called "pairing" which sounds like a very private process that the telephone and the hearing aid should be able to do by themselves if they are clad in tasteful but alluring hand-made lingerie and left overnight in a secluded bureau drawer decorated with a few rose petals, maybe a little Barry White on the CD player, but this is not the case. I shall have to push, in correct sequence, several of the near-microscopic buttons on the smartly attired telephones, and my thumb is still in training.
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