Saturday, 20 November 2004 | Disconnect

My last words into my cell phone were, appropriately enough, "I think my cell phone's dying." At the end of that sentence, suddenly everyone I know became distant and unreachable. (I didn't have any numbers saved.) I couldn't go online (dialup) if I wanted anyone to call me on my landline (no voicemail or call waiting) and I was even hesitant to play music, because it might've prevented me from hearing the ringer. Having my connection to the world amputated felt kind of lonely.

The first call I received was disorienting (no caller ID), and, while talking, I clumsily got tangled in the cord and dropped the phone. (Pitiful.) Modern living, it seems, has made me a dependent and uncoordinated beast.

It was Friday night, so the phone store was closed and no one was checking email, but with a little detective work (calling one number to get another) I was able to find my friends and rejoin society. (I would borrow two phones during the course of the evening.)

Today, on my way to the Sprint store, I asked a stranger if I could use his phone to make a quick call. He mistook me for a non-cell phone user, referring to me as "one of them," meaning one of the people who refuse to buy a cell phone but leech off of other cell phone users. "You think you can handle this new-fangled technology?" he prodded. "I'm on my way to the Sprint store, I'll have you know," I told him. I think that made him feel better.

I didn't get the phone I wanted, which was the plainest and darkest model. Apparently that phone hardly works, according to the salesman. I didn't bother asking why they didn't somehow improve it, or why they even had it on display as an option. Instead, I reluctantly agreed to a phone I found rather offensive, one that had a bird actively flying on the screen. So now that I am equipped with a phone again, my only real priority today is to somehow MAKE THE BIRD STOP FLYING.

My old phone housed a lot of numbers of people whom I'm no longer in touch with. I was saving them just in case, because deleting them seemed too decisive and final and mean. It's weird to think that those people are likely out of my life for good now, all because of the death of a strange little gadget. I probably would've kept those numbers in there forever, however obsolete they became.

...

So, if I know you, you mind sending me your number?