Playing With My Dingleberry At The Dinner Table

Way back in the early 2000's I replaced the silly piggyback data thingy on my Motorola StarTAC with the fancy-schmancy Mindspring Treo.  While it wasn't a phone it did sync with Outlook to give me my entire mailbox, contacts and calendar at my fingertips. 
In 2002 or '03 my employer began investigating the BlackBerry, and I was given one as part of a 3 month beta test.  Three months stretched to 6 when the call finally came from the IT department that it was time to turn-in the BlackBerry.  While all the users love them, they had some security concerns, so for the time being the BB's had to go.

It was later that night when I plugged my old Treo into my PC to sync my data that I began referring to my PDA as my Dingleberry.  If you don't know what a dingleberry is, you might not want to Google it.  Trust me, it's not a term of endearment.

It's over 7 years later and though we've had Smart Phones for most of those years they have all been my Dingleberry, and they've all annoyed my wife.

I suppose she'd be fine with it if I didn't have it in my hand all the time.  It's really an odd, Narcissistic thing to have to constantly check my email, just in case someone sent me something.  Heaven knows there have been very few issues that have required that sort of vigilance, but like so many of my generation I can't seem to help it.

Where it really gets on her last nerves is when I have my dingleberry out at the dinner table.  I think what really annoys her is that I am such a trivia and news junkie that I'm forever Googling something.  (They do call me "The Googler")

Thankfully I've moved from the Treo, to a couple different Pocket PC's , and now to an Android.  Who knows what's next?  All I know is whatever it is I'll be lying with at at the dinner table and annoying my wife.