The other day my cellphone died leaving me with no contacts and a new Blackberry i didn't know how to use.
   The helpful weirdo who gave me the tutorial on it's use overlooked the one feature I really needed to know about but is secondary and almost obsolete in today's world of twitter, youtube, instagram, facebook and skipeing. He didn't show me how to answer a call or hang up or you know, use it as a telephone.
   The next day I had to call CAA to have my truck towed from my new house to my mechanics. I placed the call and after everything was arranged, Joyce, my friendly CAA customer service rep, told me that when the truck was ten or fifteen minutes from my house I would receive an automated call to confirm everything.
   I then called Ross, my mechanic, to let him know it was on it's way. We had discussed it the week before but hadn't confirmed the details. There was no answer at his shop but I just assumed they were busy and decided to try back in a few minutes.
   Shortly thereafter my phone rang. It was CAA confirming the tow. This is when I discovered that I didn't know how to answer. I searched desperately for something clearly marked "phone answering button" or a picture of a cartoon man chatting on a tiny cartoon telephone, but to no avail. I felt like my dad trying to set the timer on a VCR. As the phone continued to ring I grew more and more desperate until I missed the call.
   I didn't know if by missing said call I had cancelled the tow, so I tried to call them back. I had already placed several calls but the strong mixture of panic, confusion and rage coursing through my veins somehow completely shut down the memory and reasoning centres of my brain and I couldn't figure out how to do that either. It just kept trying to find the number in my contacts.
   After what seemed like an eternity of fumbling around I finally got someone on the line who confirmed that the tow was still en route.
   Now it occurred to me that I had a guy coming to tow my truck 150km from Oshawa to Minden and I still hadn't confirmed with Ross that someone would be there to receive it. I quickly dialed the number of his shop again. I had actually figured out how to make a call, putting me on equal footing with everyone in North America born after the outbreak of World War One.
   The phone rang and rang with no answer. What if no one was there today due to unknown circumstances like a family illness or little known religious holiday? Ross didn't seem like the kind of guy who would shut down for Ash Wednesday but who knows?
   "Great Scott!" I thought, "I'd better call back and cancel that tow until I can speak to Ross!"
   It was then, as the phone rang on and on, that I realised I didn't know how to hang up either. Previously when I had managed to defy the odds and actually place a call, the person on the other end  had hung up and terminated the conversation. There was no one there to save my non tech savvy buttocks this time. If no one ever answered I might have to just throw the phone out and start over!
   In my mind I could see an imaginary clock ticking off the seconds until it would be too late to cancel the tow without suffering some kind of horrible consequences. A lifetime towing ban perhaps? Getting kicked out of the CAA? For the love of God! Where will I get my maps? I desperately jabbed at the device like a starving chicken pecking at a handful of corn.
   It was then that the panic, frustration and anger overwhelmed me. I began screaming "Why won't you hang up you..." well...lets just say I made some rather harsh and inappropriate accusations about the Blackberry's relationship with it's mother.
   Seconds later, as I stood there trying to regain my composure, I heard a faint voice say "Hello?".
   "Oh, hi Ross, how's it going?" I said nonchalantly.
   "Fine", said Ross in the tone of voice one uses when one answers one's phone only to find a crazy person screaming obscenities at one for no apparent reason. Sort of a mixture of confusion and barely restrained fury.
   I informed him that I had just gotten a new cell phone.
   "I see", he replied in the same voice.
   Clearly he would need more of an explanation.
   As my tale of stupidity and poor anger management unfolded Ross began to laugh and told me that he too had had his run ins with new technology.
   My wife has since shown me the two curved lines that are supposed to represent a right side up and upside down handset used for answering and hanging up. I'm not sure why the people at RIM chose icons so open to artistic interpretation, but I digress.
   Next week she's teaching me how to program a VCR.