On my way home from work yesterday, I stopped at the store to pick up a soccer ball for my youngest son.

Actually, it wasn’t for him. It was a going-away present for one of his closest friends.

That complicated matters for me, because the store had multiple styles of soccer ball. If it had just been for him, I would have grabbed the one that I thought looked cool. Since it was a present, I felt like I had to get his input. So I called home.

“There are a couple different ones,” I said when he answered. “How about if I take a picture and text it to you?”

“You mean on my cell phone?”

“Yep. I’ll hang up and do that. Check your phone for the text.”

I took the picture, texted it, and then called the house again. This time, his brother answered.

“I sent the text,” I said.

“Yeah, he’s getting it.”

There was an extended pause.

“It’s taking a really long time to download,” I said.

“Yeah.”

Another pause.

“Okay, what’s going on?”

“Well,” he said. “His phone is charging. We have to wait for it to charge.”

“What?”

“It’s plugged in,” he explained, “and it’s at three percent. We think we have to wait for it to reach fifteen percent. It shouldn’t be too long.”