Low Battery, No Signal

I have had a cell phone since 1998. My first phone was a brick sized (and brick weight) Motorola analog phone. Then I progressed on to several different Nokia phones of different shapes, colors, and sizes. My favorite was the baby blue one…so cute. Anyhow, when I moved to Canada a year ago, L and I decided not to get cell phones because we thought it was too luxurious for two heavily indebted grad students. Did we miss having them? No, we did not. We did not miss always being a phone call away from anyone who wanted us, we did not miss maneuvering through traffic with one hand, or telling the entire grocery store about how drunk we were last night. For the first time in years, when I was out of my house…I was really out—unreachable, independent, an individual! Furthermore, we were freed from our long captivity under contracts and service agreements.

But yesterday, friends, I missed our cell phones. What could’ve happened to make me wish for that slavery to Mozart’s Waltz (according to Nokia, he only wrote one)? Well, I’ll tell you.

There we were at the mall—I had some business to do at La Senza, it was a simple matter of exchanging an item previously purchased. But L, like many men in his situation, was loathe to spending more than 7.35 seconds in that particular store, so he whispered something about going next door and skipped away. I, meanwhile, completed my transaction in that pink, frilly oblivion and sashayed next door to the Jean Outlet store. No L in sight. I walked out to the hallway again and scanned the stores in the vicinity: Naturalizer, some bikini store, the Children’s Place, American Eagle…no, I did not think he would go into any of these. I walked a bit hoping to catch a glimpse of his brown, leather jacket, but only found the Abandoned Husbands Office (the benches at the end of the hall).

I wandered up and down, and up and down, constantly looking over my shoulder, imagining that he would pass me and I would not see him. Then I decided to wait outside La Senza, rationalizing that eventually he would come looking for me. But this did not occur. The people riding the escalators stared at me. The sales people in stores observed me carefully—maybe they thought I was “casing the joint,” as they say. Then two security guards rushed past me. I thought maybe L had been kidnapped! Maybe he’d fallen and was unconscious somewhere! Maybe someone lured him into the back of a van, enticing him with sweet, sweet software!

“Get a hold of yourself!” thought I. How long had I been standing there? No idea, I had no watch. It might’ve been 30 mins or it might’ve been more than an hour. If L slipped in the bathroom his head might’ve cracked open…he could be bleeding out somewhere all alone! Calm…calm….breathe. He’s six feet tall, he’s O.K.

That’s right. He’s probably O.K. He’s probably in some store comparing prices on computer games. He probably ran into someone he knows and now they’re having coffee somewhere and he doesn’t even remember that he abandoned me and I don’t even have car keys! Bastard.

Wait, what if he went to the car for some reason…to put something in the trunk…and a surly thug whacked him over the head for our ’98, paint-peeling Plymouth Neon! Unlikely, why would the surly thug steal our car?

No. He’s probably….wait….brown, leather jacket….is that him coming out of American Eagle? No, couldn’t be, he hates that store. It is him! But he hates that store! Dear God, if there was ever a time to doubt the strength of L’s convictions (in store hatred) this was it, and I had failed. Curse my wretched faith in store hatred!

So, in summary, a cell phone would have helped me not to freak out in the middle of the mall. But, if I had a cell phone I would not have had this story to tell all of you. So the moral of the story is that technology makes our lives easier, but easier is boring(er).