The Salmon-colored Conch Shell

By Author: rdfgdr
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I am never the first in line to try out or buy new technologies. Case in point: I am the only person I know who has managed to survive on the planet this long without owning a cell phone. I live a simple, wire- free life in a mountainous village on a remote island in the Aegean.This is why we moved here, to leave the city smog and the all-too-frantic pace behind us. Instead, we are surrounded by goats and cats. We made the right decision.A couple of weeks ago on the beach, I came across a salmon-colored conch shell. It's a silly habit, but I hold a shell to my ear to see if I can hear the waves crashing. I never do, of course, but I repeat the exercise endlessly. I don't know why the thought hit me, but suddenly it occurred to me this shell was about the size of a first-generation cell phone. I decided to keep it.

Ever since I brought it home, I've been amusing myself by "dialing" it and waiting for it to ring. Amazing, this modern technology! I have called it my shell phone and am quite taken with it.I figured it was time to test it out in the real world, minute as my "real world" is. I took it with me one day when we ...
... went out for lunch. As busy workers dining at the other tables reached for their cell phones to check in with their bosses about this or that, I made my move. I held my shell phone to my ear and spoke briefly. I am a Woman of few tyords.I watched for reactions, but nobody seemed the least bit concerned. On his way out, one diner complimented me on my unusual model. "Oh, it's the latest in the Omega-22-Al-pha series, " I smiled. "I bought it at the big electronics trade fair. "I had to laugh at my own joke: I haven't been off my little Greek island for two years. I have completely forgotten what the interior of a bookstore or a movie theater looks like. I live 28 sea- hours from Athens, truly in the middle of nowhere.The diner nodded, still taking me seriously. Perhaps he felt a bit embarrassed that he hadn't attended the trade fair. After all, nobody wants to admit being out of the loop about the latest trends, electronic or otherwise.

I don't always carry it with me, but now I at least own a modern shell phone and am se-mi-connected to the rest of the planet. Of course, I won't hand out my number to just anybody . The last thing I want is a bunch of telemarketers finding me and interrupting my dinner to ask if I want to invest in time shares on a Greek island.I realize it was a bargain, but at the moment, I am having a bizarre bit of a technical difficulty with my wireless wonder. It may be my imagination, but whenever I pick up my phone, I distinctly hear the sea.

Henry Metcalf, a 54-year-old journalist, knows it takes money to raise kids. But he's also worried that his energy will give out first. Sure, he can still ride bikes with his athletic fifth grader, but he's learned that young at heart doesn't mean young. Lately he's been taking afternoon naps to keep up his energy. "My body is aging," says Metcalf. "You can't get away from that." Often, older parents hear the ticking of another kind of biological clock. Therapists who work with middle-aged and older parents say fears about aging are nothing to laugh at. "They worry they'll be mistaken for grandparents, or that they'll need help getting up out of those little chairs in nursery school? Says Joann Galst, a New York psychologist. But at the core of those little fears there is often a much bigger one: "That they won't be alive long enough 10 support and protect their child," she says.