Oh - the Blackberry rings too

So, I get my new BlackBerry.

I get the holster that holds the phone and the hook that attaches to my belt. I get the @blackberry.net email address, the call-message number and the special password.

And most importantly, I get even with He Who Can’t be Named. His infatuation with his BlackBerry is the thing that drove me to get a BlackBerry in the first place.

So here I am. I’ve got the “cool” of person with a BlackBerry on the hip. How important am I? Oh yeah.

And then a funny thing happens. My BlackBerry rings.

“Oh.” I say, laughing nervously. “It rings.” I hadn’t anticipated this.

Now, you’re under the gun. You have to figure out how to answer this thing because this isn’t just any old phone ringing. This is your BlackBerry.

And that means there is someone very cool on the other end, probably calling on their BlackBerry. And they will be calling with some very important information. If you fail to answer correctly, you can say bye-bye to your new found cool.

Now, you’re sweating. In the few seconds it takes your BlackBerry to get through its ring cycle, you have to figure out:

a.) how to get the thing out of its holster without hanging up on the cool caller

b.) which button to press so that you don’t hang up before you’ve said hello.

c.) how to make your fat finger behave like a skinny finger so you can navigate the tiny buttons

d.) how not to swear at the person who designed the BlackBerry buttons for users with anorexic digits.

Talk about pressure. Your cool rating is on the line here. You cannot be a cool BlackBerry user if you cannot work out how to answer the thing. It says so in the manual.

Sadly, I believed the line about the BlackBerry being intuitive so I didn’t put in the time to learn it properly. This is what a man would do. He would play with it so that when it finally decided to ring, he would know what to do. He would then say it’s intuitive.

When my BlackBerry rings, I panic. Most of the time I end up hanging up by mistake. And if by some long shot I do manage to get through to the caller, I’m so frazzled from trying answer that I’m in no shape to communicate.

He Who Can’t be Named finds this all very amusing. He’s actually admitted to calling my BlackBerry just so he could visualize the flailing hands, muttering and general chaos on my end. (Is there a facility into which we can put people like this? Just wondering.)

It’s not that I don’t like my BlackBerry. I love it - when doesn’t ring.

So, do me a favour. Don’t call me on my BlackBerry. As long as it’s not ringing, I will be remain cool and important. And that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?

Freelance BlackBerry-ista Gail Lethbridge will pick up her messages as soon as she figures out how to do that. Visit her blog: giftedtypist.com