Cell Moan

Any of you who are tired of hearing about my smart phone need to raise your hand right now, cause there is another short installment. One of the beauties of having smart phones is that you can take them on vacation to read scriptures instead of packing around the large heavy variety. Not only are they lighter in weight, they also have back lighting which comes in very handy when you only have one flashlight in a seven person family. The second night of our St. Joe vacation, I turned on my phone to find it happily displaying nothing but white. Try as I might, I couldn't revive it. Seems the display has gone south. Not sure why. I did see the kids looking at it, but they assure me that they didn't do anything. This came as no surprise. When Michael ran into the room several weeks ago painted head to toe in mascara, nobody did that either. Still, there is not a scratch on the phone, so I suspect that they are telling the truth. The upshot of it all is that I get to find out what my $400 phone has for a warranty. I suspect it ran out last week.

On the way home from the trip, my car started to feel left out on the big spender sweepstakes. I tried to explain that there was no need to overreact as the phone had a legitimate excuse; a $400 phone is born to give grief. Still, the car would not listen and started flashing the oil light. Never having had that happen before, and with Grandpa Campbell's voice ringing in concert with the warning bell from the console, I stopped immediately and got out to look and listen. After shutting it off, I added a quart of oil I had on hand (it was on the low side) and started it up again. The oil light disappeared and the car sounded great; no grinding, clicking, splashing of oil, sucking sounds, or anything of the like. It made it from the far side of Potlatch home without any problem. As we were turning into the driveway, it went on again, but only for a moment as we were home and I shut it off. It is at times like these I wish that I had run happily out to the Rabbit when Dad said it was time to rebuild the engine instead of perfecting the disappearing act to my room, an act that has now passed down a generation, manifest each time I mention to our oldest anything about loading the dishwasher. The upshot of all of this is that tomorrow, I will be heading back to see "Marty" (check here for background) to learn what the damage will be this time. I am sure he will only want my second-born child.

Finally, I just have a question: Is it just me, or does the whole Orthodontics business seem like a scam? Now don't get me wrong; there are lots of people who need the services of these fine men and women. Straight teeth are exceptionally important, both from a cosmetic and mouth-health point of view. But I have to wonder; have we gone to far? After many fabulously benign trips to the dentist, last week he tossed out the opinion that our oldest might benefit from a trip to see Orthodontist when we got around to it. A week later, I was face to face with the happiest lady I have ever met. After sing-song-ing her way through the ins and outs of why we all should have braces (teeth wear my boy, teeth wear!), she flashed her beautifully set, fully clear-braced teeth and told me that I could cover the $5000 price tag with only one arm down and two toes a month for 22 months. Wow was I happy!!!! All to fix a 68% overbite. And, the best news was that they could start right away. Whoaaaaa! We'd only just met. Now the matching outfits, movies, games, and swim parties were starting to make sense. I don't know what kind of people can plunk down $5K without doing a little planning, but I thought this was all a little bit too much. I am interested in what all of you think. Have we Americans gone straight teeth mad? Does the fact that neither I nor K needed braces mean that we had uncaring parents? Has our quality of life been so terribly distorted?

I'll leave you with a couple of pics for our fabulous St. Joe trip this week.