My friend Derry Brownfield had a phrase he like to use to describe something that the “smart people” thought was special: Ignorance gone to seed.

I got a new cell phone a few months ago.  My old one was 15 model numbers behind the newest model.

A few days ago I was on a Zoom conference call, away from home and in a place with a lot of background noise.  I took the little headphones with little microphone with me to plug in so I could hear the meeting and unmute myself long enough to make a comment while keeping the background noise from distracting from the meeting itself.

That was when I learned the new phone does not have a headphone jack.  So instead of protecting my meeting attendees from the background noise of my surroundings, I contributed to the noise level at my location by listening to the meeting discussions on my cell phone speaker.

I suppose I would have known about this sort of thing if I had read the operator’s manual for the cellphone.

But it didn’t come with an operator’s manual either.

To get the operator’s manual I had to use the cell phone to get to the operator’s manual website. There were no instructions that I could find that would instruct me how to find the instructions for looking for the instructions.

Oh, and on top of all of that, the company has changed the little thingie that connects the power re-charging cord to the phone, so I couldn’t use the cable from my old phone to charge the new one. And the recharging cord is almost long enough to reach from the outlet to the nearby table where the phone can sit while charging.

So there I was, on the road 400 miles from home.  The charger I keep in my car to re-charge my cell phone had the older thingie on it so I couldn’t charge my cell phone in my car.

The other day I went back to the phone store.  I now own a pair of ear buds that have a wireless Bluetooth connection to my phone.   But I have to charge them to make them work. Fortunately, they came with a power cord with the appropriate thingie on it.  And I got an extension cord for my wall plug-in to charge the phone.

And I got a new car charger.  So now I have to carry two car chargers, one for my phone and the old one because the new charger doesn’t fit the charging port of the tablet we take with us on our trips.

As a result I have more things to worry about plugging in and more things to worry about making sure I pack for a trip. I’m not sure but I might have to leave behind three changes of underwear on the next trip so there’s room in my suitcase for all of the new charging cables, earbuds, and earbud containers.  Plus adaptors for foreign outlets.

That’s quite a racket the phone company has going for it.  I wound up spending $200 so that I can take part in my next remote meeting and so I can make sure my phone is charged enough that I can watch the whole thing.

And I still haven’t found the instruction book.

Sometimes I think cell phone companies and other tech manufacturers change things for the same reason dogs lick certain parts of their bodies—because they can.

Oh well, I can still use the earphones with my desktop computer.  And they don’t need to be charged.