Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Prince Albert in the Can.

"Hello, Ralph's Supermarket? Do you have Aunt Jemima by the box? " "You do? Well, you'd better let her go!" bwa ha ha. I so frickin' funny. I'm thinking back 40 years to when I first started to use the telephone because I just lost my cell phone and have been inconsolable ever since. I have no desire to relive my misspent youth by pranking the grocers, I just want my phone back.

I heart my phone so much, I want to marry it. Two years ago, when Apple came out with the iPhone, I sold my soul to the devil and got myself one. From the moment I first laid fingers on it, I was smitten. (insert violin music here) Did I want to know how much LUX shares were trading for ? BAM! One finger touch and I knew. Was I wondering whether my sister in Nova Scotia had good weather that day for her golf game? ZAP! I was instantly informed about the temperature in both farenheit and celsius, just because. I never forgot another password, or misplaced a grocery list because BING! BANG! BOOM!, the trusty notepad function was THERE FOR ME, MAN. This device changed my life. I don't mean to be dramatic, yeah, right, but this seriously was the gadget I'd been waiting for all my sad, little life.

Of course, if I were to be honest, as in any relationship, my iPhone and I had its ups and downs. It wasn't all goodness and light and Marshmellow Fluff. Like the time I went to Nova Scotia and racked up $900 in data messaging fees. Nobody told me it would cost me money every time I went on Facebook to check and see which of my friends "just got back from work" or to see "who has a secret crush on you." I didn't know that text messaging to California while watching "Trailer Park Boys" in Halifax, four time zones farther, would be subject to data roaming fees. Who knew, right? Clearly not me. So that was not a happy point in my iPhone love life.

Bittersweet in the technology tangle was my phone's tendancy to ring at all the wrong moments. Like in church and at funerals. Like in meetings after I'd self righteously give the evil eye to the poor sucker who forgot to turn off his ringer and interrupted my most brilliant Dilbert office moments. Then, two minutes later, as I waxed eloquent about "paradigm shifts", my own phone would start chirping, vibrating and ringing all at the same time. Not to mention that with all six of my email addresses going straight to the phone, I-of-Little-Willpower was completely unable to EVER get away from it. Also, no longer could I "forget" to do anything, the phone would send me reminders two days before, one day before, 15 minutes before. A blessing and curse, that's what that was.

Oddly enough, as I write this, I realize that as much as I love my phone and how it has helped me to become my Best Self, I don't ever actually USE it as a phone. Truth. I email people, and I text people if I have to communicate. I won't even order pizza unless they have online ordering available. I hate talking on the phone, phones are the instrument of the devil, a necessary evil, so why all the angst about losing it? Hmmmmmm. Perhaps I should lock myself in my hot car with the windows rolled up and contemplate that for a bit. Perhaps my iPhone and I don't have a future together afterall. I'm not eligible for an upgrade yet, so I'd be paying the big buck price for a phone that I don't ever use as a phone. In these uncertain economic times, that would be unconscionable and probably not very GREEN, which they say is important, but I ain't buying the GREEN thing.

Oh dear. Now what? I suppose I could do one more sweep of the house. I know it is there somewhere because the iPhone Locator told me it was there somewhere. I could look in the freezer AGAIN. Under the couch AGAIN. In the dirty laundry AGAIN. GASP!!!!!!!!!!!! The dog!!!!!!!!! The fucking dog! I bet she ate it! I should have thought of that sooner because she eats every else, just like a frick frackin' Billy Goat. Of course, if she did eat it, it will have to ahem, "surface" if you know what I mean. Yuck. Perhaps a similarly messy but marginally more palatable method of recovery would be to have it surgically removed from her intestinal tract. That's what I'll do. Yes. Alrighty then, I'm going to go call the Vet. Wait, I can't CALL anyone....I lost my iPhone.

Poor sad bitch me. sue