Phoning it in

This morning I scared the crap out of myself. No, I didn’t have a near miss car collision (the term “near miss” is misleading, shouldn’t it be a “near hit”?) or choke on a peach pit or anything like that. I got on the train today, put my pass into the pass holder, and then went for my Blackberry to check my e-mail as I do every morning. However, there was a problem. A BIG problem.

HOLY CRAP I LEFT MY PHONE AT HOME.

I began to panic and I broke out in a cold sweat. What if someone needs to reach me? What if I need to reach someone while I’m not near a land line? How will I keep in touch all day? As I sat there contemplating a day without my Blackberry, I began to try to remember the last time I was out in the world without a phone. 1997? 1996? Back when cell phones were new, and people only had them “in case of an emergency” my dad got the whole family bag phones. Remember the bag phone? It was freaking enormous, therefore rendering it an immobile phone. To carry it anywhere was like carrying a second briefcase, and twice as heavy. I had that phone in my car until probably 1995 or 1996, when my car was broken into on Sawyer Avenue and the bag phone was stolen by thugs. I figured the thugs would be easy to spot, lugging around a bag phone to make their drug deals. Oh well.

Regardless, up until 1996 or 1997 when I got my first StarTac phone, (which was totally portable, but only held a charge for like, 8 hours) when I went out into the world, I was unreachable. Yes – totally unreachable. Remember when we were kids, and you’d call a friend up only to be told they were “out”. Damn! She’s OUT!!!! When will she be back?? Oh man…I guess I will….HAVE. TO. WAIT.

And wait we did. Or even worse than the waiting for someone to get home was the dreaded busy signal. Do kids today even know what a busy signal sounds like? The advent of call waiting killed the busy signal. The busy signal did enjoy a brief resurgence, however, in the early 1990’s when dial-up internet was king. You’d be trying to get a hold of someone forever, only to be told that they had been chatting on AOL for 3 hours. Oh busy signal…we hardly knew ye.

A day at the mall was never interrupted by fighting children, inquisitive bosses, even more inquisitive mothers, or boundless e-mails from Horchow and FTD. And on the way home, you could listen to your music as loud as you wanted, because you didn’t have to constantly be listening for a ring tone. Hell, there was no such thing as a ring tone. You had to blindly pick up the phone and say hello to whoever was on the other end of the line, because you didn’t know who it was. It could be your best friend calling to tell you that the cute boy from gym class really likes you, or it could be your principal looking for your parents. Who knew?

As I finally talked myself off the “I left my phone at home” ledge, I realized that it would all be ok. One day without the Blackberry won’t kill me. It may aggravate me, but that’s ok. There are definitely WAY more important things in life. I reached into the center well of my purse for the book I’m currently reading (Ann Rule’s “Green River Running Red”) and lo and behold….there’s my phone. I think my heart jumped a little upon seeing it – flashing its cute little red e-mail indicator light. Yay! My phone! It’s here! I let the relief wash over me.

But as I was scrolling through my important emails from Zappos, Hotwire, iTunes and the like, I was a little disappointed. I was not going to have a day where I was “out” and unreachable.

I think tonight on the way home from the train station I will turn up my radio as loud as it can go, sing along, and not think about ringtones.