‘My phone says I can’t go out until Tuesday, so I can’t come and meet you,’ said my friend. And she repeated this down the line several times, as I insisted I did not understand.
I had nipped outside the hairdresser with my hair in highlighter foils to take her call and was standing on the street, phone tucked under the silver-paper flaps, a stiff wind blowing. I assumed she must be saying something else and I had misheard.
‘It’s the app on my phone,’ she explained. ‘I’ve counted the days myself and I should be able to go out today, but my phone says I have to stay in for another day, so I’ll do that.’
I get that she was isolating after contracting Covid, even though she was double vaccinated, but that’s another story. What I didn’t understand was how an app could count better than she could.
I haven’t ever downloaded any apps.
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