Justaphone

The Blackberry has been dying a slow, painful death. It started having symptoms with handling data, crashing every time I connected to the Internet. I dropped the data package, and the phone retaliated by crashing during phone calls. Static, humming, then nothing. A battery re-boot wouldn't even restore it; the only thing that would revive it was plugging it back into the wall charger. Which is a pain in the ass when you're in your car where there's no wall, no outlet, and no charger. Kinda defeats the purpose of having a mobile phone. Since it began to do this with every call, I took it to AT&T yesterday and confirmed that it was, indeed, terminal. Poor thing - it never even had a chance. Two years of faithful service ended in an ignonimous death.

I wished it a fond farewell, and powered down for the last time. Then I took a deep breath and told the sales associate, "I want just a phone."

"Justaphone?" Like it's all one word.

"Yeah, just a phone."

"Wow, that's a big change, going from a Blackberry to justaphone."

"I know. That's what I want."

We wandered over and looked at the justaphones. I settled on the least expensive which, bonus, comes in green. And they had a green one left. Sold!

"Wait!" I said. "Does it have an alarm clock on it? Because I use my cell now as my alarm clock and got rid of the clunky plastic-with-glowing-red-LED-numbers monstrosity on my nightstand." Yes, it has an alarm clock. Whew!

There is something refreshing about having justaphone. It's the feeling of not being tied to technology. It's the ability to really prioritize what is important in my life. E-mail and Facebook are not, in the grand scheme of things, important. Who I am with right now is what is important. Being cut off for 10 days on vacation brought this front and center for me. Standing in Yosemite Valley without a cell phone made me realize that a.) I won't die without 24/7 access to e-mail and b.) there are more important things in life than technology. Mother Nature will do that to ya.

I think people are, by and large, replacing face-to-face interaction with technology. I don't like sharing a meal with someone and their Blackberry. I don't like sharing a meeting with someone and their iPhone. If you want to spend time with me, dammit, spend time with me. Not me and the 562 friends you have on Facebook.

Technology, for all its assets, has introduced acceptable ways to be rude into our daily lives. It started with call waiting, which I thought was relatively innocuous until M pointed out to me that the message you're sending when you click over to take that other call is really, "Hey, you are less important to me than this person clicking in, so why don'tcha sit there and wait until we get done talking." That's not cool at all. I swore off call waiting forever with that one, unless it's a possible emergency (like Zoe's school clicking through in the middle of the day) or I need to get the call for business (and those I take only during regular business hours - my time is my time now, thankyouverymuch).

I have an awesome friend, Ping, who has never once pulled out a cell phone during our lunches. I'm embarrassed to admit that I did pull out my Crackberry a few times, but looking back, she's never done that to me. When we have lunch together, which is about once a month or so, it's just about us. It's only now that I've cut the cord, rid myself of the technology leash, that I realize truly what a gift that is. (Thank you, Ping!)

So here's my formal apology to anyone who has ever felt second-fiddle to my PDA. Trust me, it will never, ever happen again. But let me know if you want to see my cute new green justaphone! It even has an alarm clock!