iTouch Tensions

Written 3 January, 2009

iTouch Tensions

There were some tensions in the household last night.

It was all due to my bad behavior with my iTouch.

Or perhaps I should say my temporary iTouch psychosis.

You see, last night Sweetie showed me how she had rearranged the icons on her iTouch desktop. So of course, nothing would do but I rearrange my own icons.

Everything was going fine until my iTouch decided it wouldn't give me any more icon pages.

"Of course it won't," said Sweetie. "It's a tiny machine and you're asking too much of it."

"But it has 32 GB of memory," I complained.

"It's like a HUD," she explained patiently. "HUDs have only so many attachment points. And of course, Bond Girl, you have to have something attached at every one: Mystitool, emoter, compass, AO, translator, Tiny Empires, volcano rock thrower..."

"And your point is?" I asked. I hope I was smilng sweetly.

"You know what my point is. You're asking too much of your iTouch."

"But my icons are disappearing! I can find only three Sudoku games. I KNOW there were four!"

"Hon," she explained patiently, "You have 240 applications on your iTouch. That's too many."

"But there's an app for EVERYTHING!" I said.

"And they were free, right?" she laughed.

"Uh, most of them."

"Perhaps you can tell me why you need to have a virtual champagne glass you can clink when you touch other iTouches."

"Sweetie, it's called an iTOUCH! An iTOUCH!"

"Ask yourself if you really need that app."

"But it was just New Years!"

"And New Year's Day is over, right?"

"I suppose it is." I keyed Clink, preparing to delete it. "But what if someone has an unexpected baby? Or there's an unplanned new year on March 23?"

"Just delete it, hon," she said.

I tried. Honest I did.

I sulked, moving icons around. The more I moved, the more seemed to vanish.

"I hate this g*dd****d thing!" I said, wondering if the soft silicone case would protect it when it hit the wall.

"I'm going to jailbreak this m***********!" I snarled.

"Bad idea, babe," said Sweetie. "It will void your warranty and destroy your data. Give it up."

"But it will let me have folders on the desktop," I said. "And then I can put stuff in subfolders and get everything organized properly."

"You won't need folders," she said, "if you'll just get rid of iBeer and that lightsaber app and other useless stuff. "

"You never know when you'll need a light sword," I muttered. "I might get jumped by a Sith."

"Just click the YES box there," she said gently. "You'll never miss it."

"Wait a minute," I said. "Just who is it who needed 74 levels of folders in her Inventory in Second Life to house her ever-expanding collection of exploding lipsticks?"

"That's a safety issue," she said demurely. "SLOSHA requires it."

"Grrr!" I said.

"Look," she said. "If you type in the names of all those disappeared icons they'll show up on a list."

"If I wanted a list," I said, "I would still be using DOS. I want my icons back."

"Did you reboot your machine," she asked, "like I told you to an hour ago?"

"You're not the boss of me!"

"Well, technically, according to spy protocol, I am, but I'll concede the point. So do me a favor and try it."

I clicked the iTouch off and back on. I was still missing icons.

"No, no," she said. "You're just putting it to sleep." And she showed me how to turn the iTouch off by holding the button and moving the red slider. When I turned the iTouch back on, the vanished icons had reappeared.

"I'm still going to jailbreak it," I muttered.