Hey! That beaver has my wallet

Two items of supreme importance today so your full attention please:

​1. I lost my wallet.

1. My new phone is trying to get me fired.

Let’s tackle No. 1 first. And then I'll explain today's graphic.

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It happened last Saturday, somewhere between Fresh Start Donuts in Beverly Hills, where I had a hankering for cream-filled delicacies, and a house in Citrus Springs. Since I have zero recollection of the wallet after seeing donuts, I’m going to guess it flew off the roof of my car while driving on C.R. 491.

It was hours later when we noticed the wallet missing. Tore the car apart, looked around the yard, that kind of thing. No wallet.

While inconvenient, the loss of my wallet is no tragedy. It’s so easy these days to cancel and replace credit cards, and the new driver’s license has a much more handsome photo than the one that disappeared.

I’m not much of a wallet person. Whoever finds my wallet isn’t exactly striking gold. Might be able to overextend my library card, but that’s about it.

There is a $20 bill in the wallet, emergency money in case, you know, I lose my wallet.

It got me wondering, though, of the order of inconvenience for losing any of the big three: keys, phone, wallet. After giving it some (too much) thought, here’s my final ruling.

• Keys. No keys, no car, no access. I can have my phone and wallet, but without access I’m stuck with only a phone and wallet. This is making me nervous just thinking about it. Let’s move on.

• Phone. Much as I’d like to say I can go without it, we all know that isn’t true. But if I have my keys and wallet, and have little reason to access the outside world at all, I can go without the phone. For a day, maybe.

• Wallet. We’ve covered this, but it falls right behind keys. The problem with the wallet gone is the immediate issue of driving. I may have my keys but without a license, that puts me in a precarious spot behind the wheel.

And if the wallet plays a major role in your daily life, it could rank higher than keys or phone. It’s entirely a personal choice.

Glad we had this chat.

Now, about that phone.

You may recall me fretting because my LG went to smartphone heaven on Election Day, sending me frantically into the Verizon store where a nice clerk named Mitch sold me a Motorola saying it would fit my needs perfectly. As a loyal Just Wright Citrus reader, he knew my phone needs were minimal.

This phone is…OK. It does take nice pictures of buildings, parking lots, signs and county commission meetings. The sound quality is spotty and it has some other annoying traits.

The worst is the keyboard when texting. Just to the left of the spacebar is a smiley face that leads me to dozens of dumb little cartoons expressing singular thoughts. Somehow I settled on a page of cartoon beavers (though on closer inspection, it may be a raccoon) in various poses with these sayings, such as one lazing on a couch with “It’s 5 o’clock somewhere!” or another bundled in p.j’s: “Day Off” it proclaims.

Cute, right? Not my taste, though. Here’s the thing. If I accidentally click on one of these things, it automatically appears on the text chat whether I want it there or not.

It’s embarrassing when I’m texting with someone about a sick friend in the hospital and from my end there suddenly appears one of these beavers in a lounge chair eating popcorn. Which is what happened Thursday.

That’s aggravating, but it doesn’t mess with my livelihood.

I have many text conversations with public officials. The other night a county commissioner and I were having a spirited chat by text and, sure enough, every other message from me was a cartoon beaver.

While I appreciate being on friendly terms with commissioners, I even recognize this as unprofessional behavior. 

The screenshot with today’s blog is from that conversation. Good thing this commissioner has a sense of humor and that we weren’t discussing anything sensitive.

So if we’re having a text chat and an obnoxious beaver/raccoon shows up on the screen, you’ll know why. That’s just me being tech savvy.

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