July 9, 2021 – The twenty-fourth official Friday Night BeerBlog

Those two people out there that pay attention to these posts may have picked up on that my rear facing camera stopped working a couple weeks ago. Well, it actually worked taking a picture in the 2x mode, but even then was out of focus. And then my front facing camera would only work if you had the flash ON. And then ringer stopped working…every day something was failing. So I had to put it into my already insane schedule to get a new phone and all that goes with that.

I wasn’t in the market for a new phone, but how many times can I pick up my phone to take a photo only to see the black screen and remember, Oh yeah. Because my phone was 3+ years old, a replacement with the same one wasn’t possible. It was time to move into 2021, upgrade and start making payments on a phone again. Grrrr.

But my frustration over having to get a new phone isn’t what this blog is about. It’s not even about the analogy of my old phone having to go under the “knife” to be the same thing on the inside, but different on the outside. She was having to endure body altering modifications to look and feel young again. I was told to run a few errands while the Verizon surgeons did their thing. And in that time all of my most precious information was being reincarnated into a newer, sleeker, faster body. Never mind that they call this newer, younger thing an “upgrade”.

So what IS this blog about? Well, I’ll tell ya. It is about what happened to me the second I left that store without a phone in my hand. Not the old one. Not the new one. I swear I hadn’t been out the door two seconds when I automatically checked my pocket to make sure it was there. And when I realized it wasn’t. there was an sudden panic until I remembered….”Oh yeah, phone’s in surgery.”

I felt like a parent of a small child in the grocery store who realizes that their child isn’t in arm’s reach. The panic as you look around before you see her hiding around the corner of the chip section. I’m not proud, but I guarantee you I patted my pocket three times before I got to the car. And when I got in the car I went to take it out of my pocket to put in the cup holder. What a habit!

In order to pass the time before I could pick up my “upgrade”, I went to Target to pick up a few things. When I saw a really cute bathing suit I went to pick up the phone to take a picture to send to Cate. GAH! I couldn’t remember which kind of razor blades Mike needed and went to text him. ARG! I had to stand in a long line to check out and thought I’d look at Facebook to see if everyone else’s life is as fabulous as mine. Well HELL. As I was leaving Target I thought I’d call over to see if my new phone was ready. Hard to do without a phone. It was a vicious cycle.

Everything I needed to do involved my phone in some way. I had to drive home to borrow Cate’s phone to call Verizon. It was amazing all things I couldn’t do in this moment. I couldn’t check the weather or see what time it was. I couldn’t listen to Spotify or even check to see if the email I was waiting for came through.

What have I become? What have WE become? We all seem to have been assimilated and are now slaves to this contraption. Whatever the phone wants, it gets. When it needs attention it rings, buzzes with texts, chimes with notifications. You can even track it when you are apart. It feels so weird have given so much power to this object. But times are such that the world and it’s need for technology won’t allow us to be without it for very long, lest we move into caves.

All I know is that when I went to pick up my new phone it was like picking up my child that had been at daycare all day. We were so happy to see each other. I may have given it a little kiss.

LLM