Irony

It’s funny how much irony plays a role in our daily lives.  Well, not funny “ha-ha,” but funny “interesting.”  In fact, irony is almost NEVER “ha-ha” funny when it happens to us.  It’s really funny when it happens to someone else, though.  So, here are the two ironic things that happened to me yesterday, neither of them being funny “ha-ha,” more like bang-your-head-against-the-wall annoying.

I never ever update software.  I probably have the oldest possible version of everything on my computer and phone.  And I am ok with that.  Brett has warned me that sometimes updating software is not a good idea, because updates can have bugs and can cause major problems – sometimes it’s best to wait a few days and see if any issues come up with the newest version of any software before downloading it.  And sometimes “updates” could be viruses in disguise.  So, I just let him handle the updating, and I always “just say ‘no’!”  So, last night I was trying to download some pictures off my iPhone onto my computer (which I have no idea how to do).  Somewhere along the way I had iTunes giving me a friendly reminder that my iPhone was horribly out of date and needed the latest update.  I started to click “NO WAY” and then remembered that Brett had told me recently that I do occasionally need to update my software, just make sure it is from a reliable source.  So, I decided to get with the rest of the country and update my iPhone.  A few seconds later my phone was black.  No response no matter what button I pushed and whether I unplugged it or not.  I plugged it back in and iTunes gave me another friendly message that my iPhone was in recovery mode and needed to be reset to factory settings.  By the way, this means losing all data, photos, videos, etc.  The sad irony here is that the only reason I started this unfortunate dialogue with iTunes in the first place was that I was trying to GET my photos off my phone.  And now they are in some cyber dumpster in another galaxy never to be recovered.  This is precisely why I NEVER update my software.  And I will go back to my antiquated ways as soon as I finish mourning the loss of my photos and videos.

The second element of irony to this whole event relates back to those pictures and videos.  I NEVER let my kids play with my iPhone.  I’m not one of those moms who hands her phone over at restaurants, in the car, in waiting rooms, or wherever.  My $200 phone is mine and it is not a toy and I have no desire to have to replace it because one of my children dropped it and broke it.  So, as I mourn those vanished videos and photos, I realized another very ironic thing.  The two videos that I am the most upset about losing were videos that the kids took of each other.  On two separate occasions, each of the kids hijacked my phone, typed in my password (which they have memorized and I need to change!), and took a short video of the other, interviewing them and asking silly questions.  One video was done by Pierce of Sydney and the other by Sydney of Pierce.  In each of the videos, they do their little interview, which is SO cute, and then you hear my voice in the distance and the video abruptly stops!  Caught!  They weren’t supposed to be using my phone and they knew it, but the resulting video was so adorable and I am just heart-broken that they are gone.  The wobbly filming, sweet little voices, mispronounced “l’s” and all that cuteness is gone.  The videos that weren’t supposed to be filmed were my favorites.  Painfully ironic.

There are two morals to this story:

1.       NEVER update your software!

2.       Go back up your favorite files right now, people!