I think I’m a reasonably intelligent individual.  I’m also pretty mechanically inclined and have a better than average grasp of technology – I set up our home entertainment center and programmed a universal remote, for heaven’s sake.

That makes it all the more humiliating to admit that few things make me feel more dumb than buying a new phone.  Seriously, I walk into a phone store and feel like the aging Buick sedan amidst the Corvettes and Chargers.

It’s a perfect storm of insecurity-inducing elements:  You walk into a phone store and are greeted by a group of 20-something clerks who, no prejudice intended, are working for modest wages and may or may not have college degrees – certainly they are unlikely to be computer engineering graduates — but who have greater facility with phone technology than I ever will have.  Their first question is designed to make you feel stupid:  what are you looking for in a phone?

I don’t know, maybe one that I can use for calls.

I’m familiar with the concept of the smart phone, having owned a couple, but I seriously have no idea how to distinguish one from another other than by shape and color.   I’m not really an Apps guy and I have no words for expressing an actual phone preference.

Then they start demonstrating the products.  Fingers flash, bells and whistles go off, my eyes glaze over and my brain shuts down.  Give me the thin pretty one.

Data plans?  Again, I have no context for even asking what I think are intelligent questions about pricing.  I take their word for it.  Sure that sounds good – just get me out of here.