My Memorable First Experience With Siri

    In 2015, I didn’t have a cell phone and I didn’t have any experience using one.

    My wife had an iPhone, and since I had to drive 220 km, (136 miles) on a snowy mountainous highway to Prince George to get a service on our car, my wife insisted I take her iPhone along with me, in case of an emergency.  I was reluctant because of my inexperience with the gadget and the knowledge that only about 15% of the highway had cell phone coverage anyway, but to make my wife feel better, I stuck the phone into my shirt pocket.  It was still dark outside and a little before 7:00 AM, when I started on my journey.

    I had driven past McBride and was approaching LeGrande, when I was startled when the phone start ringing.  I had forgotten that I even had the phone, but figured it was a call from my wife to tell me to pick up something in Prince George.  I pulled over to the side of the snowy highway and started trying to get at the phone so I could answer it.

    In the winter I always wear a lot of layers.  The phone was in my shirt pocket, which was beneath a sweater, a fleecy jacket, and a windbreaker.

    I had a very difficult time digging through all of those layers of clothing to get the phone out, but I finally succeeded.  As I looked down at the screen I realized that everything was blurry and I needed to get my glasses to see what was going on.  I didn’t even remember bringing any glasses, but I usually have a pair in some pocket somewhere.  This meant searching all the pockets in my windbreaker and the fleecy, underneath the windbreaker.

     In my extreme frustration, I let our a loud curse, fumbling with the phone in one hand, while at the same time I was trying to find my glasses.

   Then suddenly I heard a voice came out of nowhere.  It was Siri, Apple’s ‘know it all’ phone voice.  Siri said to me, “I don’t understand the term ‘F--K”.

    I didn’t know why Siri was even listening, maybe I pressed a button on the phone while scrambling for my glasses, but she had evidently heard my cursing and was trying to help.  At the absurdity of what had happened, I couldn’t help but to laugh out loud at the situation. 

    When I finally found my glasses and was able to finally read the message on the phone, I discovered that the message wasn’t for me at all, it was from our friend Di, who was sending a message to my wife.  I just shook my head at all the excitement and frustration the phone had caused me, over nothing.

    Once that episode was over, I pulled back onto the highway and proceeded toward Prince George.  About 45 minutes later, I stopped again and looked back at the sunrise that was starting to color the eastern skyline and took the photo above.

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