This morning over coffee I'm reading about Zac and Vanessa of HSM fame in People Magazine. Yes, you caught me.

What caught my attention was an advertisement for a new cell phone. On the heels of the iPhone what more could they find to put into a phone that would appeal to a customer base?

LESS

Yes, the Jitterbug phone offers no camera or MP3 player, no access to the Internet or ability to access your calendar or Outlook address book.

Wonder of wonders it is just a phone. Oh wait, it also has voice mail.

"Introducing the Jitterbug. Simply designed to be the best telephone a cell phone can be. Nothing more. And nothing less. The world is complicated enough. Now there's a cell phone that makes life simple."

With the onset of the new school year my children brought home their supply list. They both needed pencils and notebooks. However, my son, who is a junior, requires a calculator for advance algebra. It's a flippin' handheld computer. $124 at Staples. The TI-84 - it plugs into his laptop. I said to my ex "how did we manage to take the same classes in school without all this technology?" Calculators weren't even available for the masses yet and even if they were - they weren't allowed in the classroom. My son is a writer, an idea man, when is he ever going to use this high-foluting contraption again? And it isn't even like I can save it for my fifth grader because the $60 TI-34 that I had to buy for geometry last year is obsolete one year later!!!!!

So I may not run out and buy a Jitterbug because frankly I bought a fancy smamcy phone with all the bells and whistles earlier this year, but the fact that a PLAIN PHONE is available just delights my very soul.

Now what else can we take back in time?

Deborah Chaddock Brown
Writer, A Simple Person