A few months ago, my then-12-year-old starting wiggling his thumbs in the air and asked, "Who am I?"

It was a not-so-subtle hint that I was spending too much time using the slideout keyboard on my smartphone to send text messages, check e-mail and look up miscellaneous trivia.

So I downgraded. I said goodbye to the keyboard and hello to a touch-screen that's such a pain to type on that I actually started using my phone to (gasp) talk when I needed to communicate. Not all the time, but often enough that I suspect my kids actually miss the days when I would tap out a quick message without having to do something obnoxious, like take my attention off what they're saying.

More recently, in anticipation of having to go hands-free, I began buying different devices that, in theory, would hold my phone in place while I chatted. In reality, it started a new era marked by what I can only term "phone rage."

The cradle attached to the windshield with a suction cup blocked the volume and voice activation buttons, but that didn't matter as much as the way it kept popping off and taking my phone with it as it flew around the car.

Adhesive hooks seemed promising, but it took three tries to get one to stick securely enough to hold my phone, and the sticky stuff soon melted in the heat.

So I gave up. Thanks to Bluetooth, I don't really need my phone to be attached to anything. With the earpiece on, I don't even have to take my phone out of my purse, assuming that the earpiece stays in place and I don't have to use the voice recognition software. Lucky we live Hawai'i, except when we're trying to get some program to understand what we're trying to say, or vice versa.

It took me a while to realize that "Cane-oh" is "Kane'ohe," but I find some degree of amusement in trying to decipher my options or figure out how to pronounce something to trigger the correct response.

Mostly, though, I'm just saying, "No," or "go back" before expressing disgust, which inevitably triggers some incorrect, though sometimes appropriate options from my contact list. I've started just asking my son to take the phone to pass along messages I could have typed in 10 seconds.

Residents in states with similar laws have managed to figure out how to keep both hands on the wheel while talking on the phone, so I'm sure the solution is out there. But unless I run across something better, I suspect my son will regret mocking my endless thumb-typing because it turns out he might be the most functional hands-free replacement.