Hang up the iPhone, Please

My husband just bought the iPhone. My husband is sweet, funny, a hardworker though he also needs to learn how to be a little more expressive. My husband has an
excellent job but he is not the CEO of a national or worldwide conglomerate. He is not a small business owner. He is not in sales or marketing or a film producer or anything in the creative arts at all. He has two related jobs, two bouncy children, one gym membership, one wife, one home. He does not need this phone.

So, he has been setting it up for THREE DAYS and he is not done! Why so long? I don't know. I do know yesterday was all about hooking up email - MY email - to his phone. He doesn't have his own account so he uses one of mine. That was fine but now he wants to be able to see email on his phone when he happens to be hanging out in Timbuckto? (However the heck that's spelled.) Well, he was having problems - he and the iPhone guy he was talking to. He calls me at work.

"What's your user name and password?"

"I gave you that this morning."

"That's not it. Its not working."

"You mean because I suddenly lost my memory and don't know my own information? I think not. It's something YOU guys are doing. Go back and try it again."

He does. I come home and he tells me the inbox got set up but he can't send out yet. My sarcasm lashes out.

"When you set up email on your phone you get one and not the other? How do they not set up simultaneously? You don't need this phone, man!"

Well, I went to check my business email last night. First of all it asked me for my password which it has not done in ages since it was saved. "Ohhh, what did he do?" I mutter to myself. Multiple attempts using the only 2 possible passwords it could be. I slam my first on the desk. Darn iPhone! I loudly march upstairs and turn on the bedroom light accusingly.

"What did you DO? My business email password is not working."

"What?"

"You changed the password somehow! What did you change it to?"

"I used what you gave me."

"I never GAVE you my business password. It's not the same as the regular email password, Mr. T." What the heck were you guys doing in there?"

I slam off the light and go back downstairs to see if I can do anything. I can't change it to a new password unless I know the old one. I slam my fist again. I hate it when people mess with my stuff. He could fiddle with the main email but why on earth were messing around with ALL the accounts I have? He walks into my office wearing his save-the-day expression which I know is a mask for his I-screwed-up-and-I'm-sorry expression. I know that's what he's doing but I can't help but turn the screw a little more.

"Came for moral support, did you?"

I am on the phone with 2 different people getting my password reset. As I am on hold waiting for the second one I just lean back and look at him through squinted eyes.

"You and that stupid phone, man. You don't NEED it, for goodness sake."

"Hey, gotta have it." (He's a gadget man. I know he means that.)

"Why?"

"It's got an iPod."

"You listen to CDs in your car. You don't exactly power walk. You don't use an iPod now! When on earth are you going to listen to the iPhone?!"

"You can go in there and google."

"You mean in case you suddenly have a need in the middle of traffic to find out the radius of the sun? When do you do that, Mr. T?!"

"You can look up addresses and get a map and boom. You're there!"

"You can do that at home and print it out too but every place we go, you tell me 'You could have gone this other way.' You're a human map all by yourself, Mr. T!"

"You never know! Don't you want to be able to check your email anywhere?"

"No! No, I do no not. And if email is suddenly so important to you, WHY DON'T YOU HAVE YOUR OWN ACCOUNT INSTEAD OF MESSING UP MINE?! This is the email address I share with businesses who want to send me a ton of junk when I just want that one thing. You really want all MY email blowing up YOUR phone?"

"I didn't know that. No. Then help me come up with a user name."

Ugh. Tech person 2 solves my problem and all is right with the world again. So I go play with his phone. "Since you're destroying my world, at least let me see the evil device that has possessed you."

It's a big toy alright. Lots of color. He's happy to show it off but all that finger tapping is just a bit much to me. He says I'd get used to it but it just seems so over-the-top to me, for a man with a life as uncomplicated as his is. Mine is way more involved and I don't even see a need to be that hooked up to the world wide web and other folk. He's a big kid at Christmas so I'll let him enjoy his toy. Maybe every now and again, I'll go look up the radius of the sun. You know, just to keep it busy.