My son was texting me last night about how he is the only kid in his bunk without a smart phone. My response was that I am also the only kid in my bunk without a smart phone. When people include me in mms’s (which, unfortunately, is not m&m’s, but a group text) I cannot open them on my grandma flip phone. Not only can I not open them, but for the rest of the day I get texts responding to the text that I couldn’t open and I cannot open those texts either.Allow me to be clear though, the son who was texting me did not ask if he could have a smart phone…which is a good thing because I am not really sure what a smart phone is—though, I am just assuming that it is any phone that isn’t my phone. My phone is very sweet and kind, but not very smart.

I am sure that all of these new advances in technology are here to keep our minds sharp, to keep us learning new things—but only if we want to. I am proud to say that my mom is a devoted student at Apple University. She attends classes at the apple store at least once a week. I know this because at least once a week my siblings and I receive an email from her with a picture surrounded by flowers or a video of her telling us that she learned how to do this in class today.Of course, I do not always know how to open said pictures or videos, but that is another story.

Going to the Apple store is never a favorite pass time of mine because it usually involves me bringing in one of my kids’ broken gadgets. I then have to explain to the “genius” in the blue shirt what’s wrong with it. I never get it right because I don’t really understand because I’m still listening to Billy Joel on the really cool record player/stereo I received as a gift for my bat mitzvah. So there I stand in the store in 2013, still living in the ’80s trying to explain to the tattooed pierced gentleman about the saga of the broken iPod. In walks my mom.

Three different “geniuses” call out her name. Some even come over and give her a hug. They all know her and love her. They ask for her grandchildren by name. And I’m still standing there not knowing the difference between instagram and telegrams—pathetic. While my mom is surrounded by her “posse,” and if you have ever been to the Apple store you know what I mean by that, my genius is looking at me like I just landed from Mars because who doesn’t know the difference between 8 gigabytes and 32 gigabytes (would it help if I told him how many bites it takes to eat a glazed donut?). And then it happens; my mom sees me. She calls out my name (my name being an entirely different topic) and my genius looks at me and says, “That’s your mom? She can help you fix this…she’s my favorite student!”

Hmm, maybe she will get my son a smart phone and teach him how to use it…

Banji Latkin Ganchrow is a Teaneck resident and writer who enjoys traveling across the country by car with her husband and three sons. She is also the author of the blog holycrapimgonnabe40 and hopes to, one day, write a best-selling novel and appear on the Ellen Show.

By Banji Latkin Ganchrow