“when moon full tomatoes sleep with the fishes.”

Why I do not have a Smart Phone.

Everyone has a Smart Phone.

Not me.

I have a standard Walmart-brand, $19.95 dinosaur flip-phone.

When my osteoarthritic fingers drop it — which is often enough — I just snap that baby back together like Legos. Boot back up, like a millennial wannabe from another decade.

Plus, it fits neatly into a pocket. I use my left pocket - the side of my body missing an ovary — to side-step any residual cancer-causing waves.

Impressed with the sheer volume of what a Smart Phone can do. I surely am. Performs everything, short of the mammogram you’ve been avoiding.

But it’s the texting part that bedevils me. Stiff fingers play in, sure.

My laborious text messages are like an e e cummings nightmare.

Still struggle to switch easily from lower to upper case, so an errant numeral doesn’t slide in. I am very careful as I text my adult children, who would never admit that they secretly scan anything I send them for signs of creeping dementia. I’m 68. I bristle, but I understand. Sort of.

This throwback little flip-phone buddy of mine likes to send all lower-case messages, so I’ve decided that’s now my signature style. Like I DECIDED that, instead of by default. Content, however, is iffy.

I do a LOT of backspace.

“I’ll meet you at the restaurant” becomes “when moon full tomatoes sleep with the fishes.”

Receive immediate text from Millennial Daughter.

Concerned, polite.

“Still meeting at la Madeleine, Mom?”

“yup.”

“Everything all right?”

“yes.”

Silence. It was just a pause from her end. But I knew.

I suddenly feel compelled to put in upper-case. Just in case.

Is she now frantically, but coolly, politely, speed texting her older sister and brother, with bad news? #Wheretoparkagingmothers?

I CAN do hashtag.

We meet, we hug, we order. I make sure to speak in full sentences.

i do not order tomatoes, or fish.

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