When Papa Anthony was alive, he had a strong love for technology, but he was very far from having the technical know-how. That man was very elderly, one of the oldest in our extended family, who returned from the city (Lagos), where he had spent most of his days, to the village to live out the remaining days of his life as he was already aged. He never bought into the idea of settling for less when it came to technological appliances in his house or digital assets, even though he didn’t have a clue how to use them.
In those days when smartphones were not so common, he taxed his children to buy him an Android phone, and one of the daughters bought him one of the trending Samsung phones of that era. I was surprised when I heard that he was given a Samsung phone, which I dread a lot because when a Samsung phone breaks, one might need to sell a house just to fix the screen. And this Papa Anthony had shaky hands then — I wondered how he was going to handle that.
That same day I heard he got a new phone, I knew he was going to send for me because I was usually his phone operator, even back when he was using a 'buttoned' phone, so I didn’t bother rushing to go and see the phone. Around 6 p.m., he sent for me through one of my younger siblings. I got there and saw him worshipping the phone, which was placed on a small table in front of him with a bottle of dry gin beside the table. His face was almost buried in the phone as he bent down his head to look at it and tried to press it in a flipping manner. I sensed it was difficult for him to hold it with his shaky hands, so he decided to operate it while it was laid flat on the table. Maybe afterwards, he was going to start moving around with the table just to use the phone.
“Okay, you’ve come. I’ve been trying to learn how to use this phone, but it’s not working. Is this not how to press it?” he asked, flipping his finger on the phone screen with too much pressure.
“No, no, it’s not like that. You don’t apply pressure, it’s sensitive to just a light touch of the fingers because the screen is delicate,” I said. I picked up the phone and easily flipped to the menu, which had been giving him a tough time. I did that while he watched and then handed the phone back to him to repeat what I just did.
He collected the phone from me and, again with pressure, scrubbed his finger across the screen and boom! the phone slid away in the direction he flipped it and hit the leg of a nearby chair. It produced a noise, and I was hopeful that nothing had happened to the screen. But no, my hope was dashed — I saw that the phone screen was cracked and had three rainbow-coloured lines on it...it was damaged.
“Did it spoil? Bring it,” he asked when he noticed how I was looking at the phone pitifully.
“Yes, the screen is damaged,” I replied, handing it to him. I hadn’t wanted to do that initially because he was elderly and might get a heart attack, but I just did.
He took the phone, looked at it pitifully, I could see signs of tears through the goggles he was wearing. He dropped the phone on the table, picked up the bottle of dry gin beside the table, gulped from it directly, and rested his hand on the chair.
At that moment, I felt like telling him how expensive it was to replace a Samsung screen, but that might kill him, and I might be held responsible. I just left him there after telling him to call the daughter who bought the phone so she could take it online for repair.
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