My phone is smarter than me

I resent my phone -- excuse me, my SMART phone. Excuse me, my SMARTYPANTS phone. It is SO obnoxious.

As someone who sees himself as the Conservative Everyman, it's incumbent upon me to live up to my moniker and take some personal responsibility for my foibles, and I must admit I'm intimidated by my Droid. That's not surprising as I'm also intimidated by 6-week-old daughter and yesterday I backed down to a Shih Tzu on Madison Avenue.

It's not that I don't know how to use my smarter-than-me phone, I'm relatively tech savvy, and I have yet to use the word "thingy" in reference to any gadget. What hurts is that my phone expects too much from me! It's nice to know my phone has high hopes for me, but there's a limit to my diligence!

If my smart phone could talk it would probably sound like EVERY teacher during my academic career, "...if T.J. would just APPLY himself!"

For every cool app on my phone and tablet there's an annoying "productivity" app. Next to each app for GPS, the weather, sports and music, there's a passive aggressive calendar or virtual meeting organizer which I haven't tapped ONCE and I hate myself for it.

For me, the worst of all these obnoxious things is the "Tasks" app. The word itself has me swiping furiously to the next screen. "Task" is such an exhausting word, with such a negative connotation of drudgery and minutiae. To my way of thinking, tasks are chores without as much dust and require squinting. Why would I want to be REMINDED to do something I have NO intention of DOING in the first place?

It's all actually a double dose of shame because of course, the only way those task apps work is if I enter the tasks in the first place. So the mere presence of these dormant icons on my screen is depressing in and of itself! I'm too lazy to be reminded of how lazy I am! And now that I'm writing about it, I'm reminded of it! My smart phone just beat me and it's currently on sleep mode!

Look, I try. Like most conservatives, I'll be listening to the Lawrence Welk channel on Pandora when I have a burst of inspiration. I'll suddenly resolve to really dig into my smart phone and get the most out of it. I'll be determined to hand my life over to the 16 gigs of higher power, and let IT run my life for me...Then I realize two things: a) That's gonna take some work on my part, and b) I never knew Lawrence Welk did a cover of "Brown Sugar"!

T.J. McCormack is a comedian, radio talk show host and commentator. He is currently host and producer of "Sunday Night With T.J. McCormack."Follow him on Twitter @TJMcCormack.