Wear a "blue tooth"

I drew an oversized tooth on a piece of paper, had my 9-year-old son color it blue, taped the blue goof to my ear, and pretended to be a status-symbol-proud Bluetooth owner.

Why should I labor to hold a phone all the way up to my ear when I can have a "blue tooth" taped to it?

What did I discover as a new blue tooth owner? Jealousy. Right from the start.

Daniel, perhaps sensing my newly elevated status, didn't want me to have a blue tooth. "Can I color it black?"

What? It's not a BlackBerry.

"Can I color it purple?"

He wasn't the only person trying to ignore my elevated status by playing dumb. Trust me, I know when someone's acting dumb.

I helped two fellow volunteers at Yardley's Old Library and neither said a word about the artistic excellence flapping from my ear. So I decided to hit Yardley's hot spots: Wawa, Starbucks, and one of the three pizza places within a quarter mile of each other. In a town the size of a Twister mat, these are the places to be seen.

But no one questioned me about my new blue heaven. Even in Starbucks, where my blue tooth "rang" so I answered the "call" and had a loud minute-long "discussion.” No one raised a caffeinated eyebrow. What a bunch of pretenders.

I wondered if, as a new blue tooth owner, I simply wasn't aware of the secret rites of ownership. Is there a little-known sign, such as the low peace wave motorcyclists give each other? Or should I tug my ear like Carol Burnett?

I figured if I simultaneously waved a low peace sign, tugged my ear, and jutted out my teeth in a massive toothy overbite, then other blue tooth owners would see I'm one of them. The cool ones.

I considered walking down Main Street sporadically waving, tugging, and jutting to possible fellow blue toothers before I realized I might have a problem. I haven't shared my blue tooth phone number with anyone.

How could other blue toothers contact me without it? What a common-man mistake I'd made.

So I made up a number, 325-322-5563, and "sent" it to everyone I knew with a "blue tooth." While I waited for my blue tooth to blow up with welcoming calls, I realized I could make it easier for my fellow Toothies to contact me by having the numbers spell out something.

In my case, oddly enough, my numbers spelled: F-A-K-E C-A-L-L M-E. How strange.

I ended my blue tooth day waiting at the train station to pick up my parents, who were arriving from Colorado, and, when they saw me, pretended they didn't know what a Bluetooth was. Righhht. Clearly, my blue tooth was again a victim of the green-eyed jealousy monster.

When I was a kid, my dad wore suits and snappy fedora hats, making him the spitting image of Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry.

Now that he has been living in Wild West Colorado for years, he stepped off the train wearing a 10-gallon Cowboy hat the size of my house.

Geez, what some people won’t do for attention.