Cell Phone in my Life
Date: Mar 17, 2005
Contributor: Noemi Benzing
Forced to face a personal hang-up: Cell phones
With a fourth-grader and a ninth-grader in the house, I really wasn't ready for a new addition to the family. But my husband decided something was missing on the home front.
So for the last two months, our lives have been enriched and complicated by a tiny bundle: my new cell phone.
It has been a huge adjustment. Gone is the sweet freedom I once enjoyed in my car, in the garden, in the ladies' room, knowing I was as out of reach as Tom Hanks in "Cast Away."
Those were the days. When the guy in the Verizon commercial asked over and over, "Can you hear me now?" I loved answering silently: No. No. No. Still no. You can't make me hear you. Life was good.
Since the arrival of my Motorola flip phone I am no longer ever truly on my own. Like an infant, the phone has needs. It makes noise and demands to be picked up. If I try to pacify it by setting it on "vibrate," it throws a tantrum in my pocket, kicking and squirming while I'm trying to watch a movie. Now it's banished to my purse.
The phone cannot be ignored. It is designed to whine: "16 unheard messages." "9 missed calls, 0 unknown." The missed message and call tallies continue to climb because I do not know how to operate the phone.
The whining of the phone is amplified by the whining of certain frequent dialers: "You never listen to your messages!" Then why do you leave any? I wonder but don't ask.
It's a big responsibility, making sure the phone gets enough juice. When the phone is weak and underfed, I feel anxious and guilty. Having your phone's battery die mid-call is an embarrassing rookie mistake.
On the plus side, a cell phone can be a source of amusement. It gives you something to do while you're driving. I mean, of course, when you pull over to make a call, because experts agree it's not safe to talk on the phone while driving.
A few weeks ago I was stuck on the highway for three hours because of snow, and I called everyone in my pre-programmed phone book at least twice to pass time. Everyone, that is, except "I Don't Know." Our daughter gave that name to a botched, nameless entry I had created.
I've never been a big phone person, so one of my girlfriends was immediately onto me when I started calling her daily. "Are you in your car?" she knowingly asks.
Before a recent business trip, I made sure to charge the phone, looking forward to some DWB (Dialing While Bored) time at the airport. But when I got to the terminal the phone was dead, dead, dead. No hello, Moto. When I returned home I gave the phone to my husband, so he could return it. Instead he turned it on; I had accidentally turned it off. How would I know how to do "on" and "off"? It was on when it was handed to me.
The screw-up was a bonding experience for me and the phone. I was disappointed when I thought it wasn't working. I missed it.
That's enough motivation for me to read the instruction manual, if I can find it.
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