Cell Phone Karma

When it comes to the recent phenomenon known as "cell phone," I'm a relative newcomer.  Unlike many of my friends, who are now sharing 5-year anniversaries with their electronic devices, I won't reach the 2-year mark for another two months.

 

Indeed, I recall watching many people during my college career and laughing inwardly at their great attachment to their phones.  Cell phones, I figured, were the worst sort of leash.  And what was worse--they were leashes people voluntarily tied themselves to and allowed themselves to be controlled by.  Sort of like getting out the leash to take the dog on a walk and finding yourself being walked by the dog instead.

 

It caused no small amusement for me to watch wide-eyed panic when people realized their phones were dying.  Or when their phones were temporarily malfunctioning.  And especially when they couldn't locate the exact whereabouts of their phones right away.  I had one particular friend who dramatically proclaimed her world would end if she ever lost her cell phone.  (Meanwhile--I, a recurring passenger in her car, worried about my world ending when she attempted to text message and drive simultaneously.)

 

But with this, as with so many other things in the course of my life, I've found myself in a situation that causes me to realize I've become the type of person I once found amusing.  And led me to think that, perhaps, people had at least a couple of good reasons for feeling tied to their cell phones.

 

Last night, my cell phone died.  Our apartment does not have a land line, and my roommate and her phone were not at home.  I desperately needed to ask her a question, but it was about dinner--so I made an executive decision and hoped she'd be okay eating what I fixed.  (She was.)  Then I looked for my charger.  And looked.  And looked.  (And mind you, I was looking with my good eye)  No charger to be found.

 

And suddenly, I despaired.  What if my parents needed to reach me?  What if I had an emergency?  What if I needed, at some point in the night, to call 911 before my roommate came home?  All of a sudden, dozens of dreary situations popped into my imagination.  And inevitably, I saw myself consigned to death in all of them.  Simply because my phone had died.

 

Then I tried to access the Internet on my roommate's computer.  Because if my phone was dead, e-mail should be an adequate communication substitute for any situations except the most absolutely dire.  Right?  I couldn't get an Internet connection.  And it felt like my world was crumbling in on itself. 

 

After the melodrama reached its peak, I realized that one of the girls in my visiting teaching group lives upstairs and around the corner.  With our ward's Relief Society president and another of my good friends.  And that they are the sort of people who, if a friend came to their door with a deeply gashed and bleeding hand/leg/foot/arm/head, would gladly take them to the hospital.

 

Then I could breathe again.  Because for all of the good technology does, it doesn't do as much good as a completely human connection.