Tag Archives: technology

An accomplishment

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Let it be known that my husband and I drove three young children (then aged 6, 3.95, and 1.9) from the state of Maine to the state of Florida:

  • without sleeping anywhere overnight; and
  • without iPads or other handheld devices

WHAT YOU KNOW ABOUT THAT

YOU EVER DONE THAT

YOU EVER DRIVEN THAT FAR WITH LITTLE KIDS WITHOUT SOME TYPE OF SCREEN-BASED ENTERTAINMENT

NO MOVIES OR SHOWS OR YOUTUBE OR TIKTOK OR VIDEO GAMES OR

Can you believe our accomplishment!? In the year 2025!? A 24+ hour road trip with that many kids and no digital devices? I mean, no digital devices for them. We obviously had our iPhones and used them to entertain ourselves as needed because, you know, that whole “do as I say not as I do” thing.

We meant to bring an iPad for them. I was worried though because one kid was in the third row and the other two were in the middle row, but one was facing forwards and the other backwards. Realistically, one iPad was probably going to create more problems than it solved. How could they all watch something at the same time? But it was at my mom’s house, and I was supposed to pick it up when we dropped off the dog, and I forgot it. So we had three little kids strapped into car seats for over 24 hours, and they didn’t spend a single minute looking at an iPad or phone.

If you think I’m bragging—I AM! THAT’S NUTS! I’m so proud of them. Of us! I mean, they cried plenty. Mostly the littlest one. And the oldest one when we had the nerve to go through a Panda Express drive-thru at 7pm in Georgia (he hates strong smells and the sound of chewing) on the way home.

How did we do it? They had a lot of toys and they ate an insane amount of Dorito’s in the middle of the night and they asked me for things approximately every 14 seconds. Also what is Crayola Model Magic made out of? Cause we definitely destroyed the model magic rainforests of the world with how much model magic those kids blew through.

But we did it! We arrived in Daytona Beach approximately 26 hours after we had set out on our journey. We should have put them on the speedway and let them run a few hundred laps because they were maniacs for the next 4 hours after our arrival, but they did amazingly well all things considered. Damn I love my kids. They’re the best.

And there’s my story. We drove from Maine to Florida without iPads and it is one of my greatest accomplishments to date. The end!

A $200 dollar trip to the mall, AND I AIN’T BUY NOTHING

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I dropped my phone in the parking lot of the main mall of Maine, the Maine Mall, last Friday. I dropped it right on its gorilla glasshole face.

a

Mint condish!

I’ve been using iPhones for close to five years — at this point, I’m embarrassingly dependent on them. How do non-iPhoners check Facebook? Or identify songs they don’t know? Or make their pictures look old? Or sneakily take pictures of people while pretending they’re talking on the phone? I just don’t get it!

As you can imagine, I was upset when I picked my phone off the ground and saw how funkdafied its face was. I thought maybe I could save it by searching the ground for the pieces of glass missing from the screen. Turns out tiny glass shards are hard to find in slushy parking lots at nighttime.

After giving up that idea, I thought if I went to the Apple store an Apple genius would take pity on me. He’d be charmed by my sweetness, and intimidated by my budding mustache, and would switch out my phone for a new one on the cheap. Either my sweetness wasn’t charming enough or my mustache wasn’t intimidating enough, cause my smelly little genius wasn’t having it. The best he could do was slap a few pieces of packing tape across my screen.

Seriously. Dude slapped the crap out of my phone with tape.

so

Sent me home all doctored up

Now, I’m stuck with a cracked phone with tape sticking out all over da place. It still functions, kind of, but I can’t really use it to make phone calls. I’d like to buy a new one, but no way no how am I wasting valuable student loan moolah on this.

I bet I can make it until summer. Right?

P.S. Quick update on my goal to debt freedom: I paid off Credit Card #1, all but $31.49 of Credit Card #2, and paid back my mom for my new tires. One of my student loans effed me up by switching my minimum payment, so I think one of my payments was late. Dangit dammitall.

P.P.S. That new iPad looks sweet, huh? And to think, starting at only $499!