I don’t know about
you but I’m pretty certain it took me about five minutes to forget how I ever
lived without a cell phone. I was one of those die-hard,
wait-as-long-as-possible-before-I-got-one people. Right now, living apart from
my older two children, I listen for those texts like a deep sea diver looks for
his oxygen tank. Even if they just text “hi” it can make the rest of my day.
I’m trying to keep my own texts to them less than 47 a day so that the ol’ cord
can be stretched while not completely severed.
I’m not going to
lie here. I’ve got beautiful children. You probably think your children are
beautiful too but there’s a difference. I’ve got redheaded children. That
doesn’t happen to everyone you know.
It was hard to
leave them behind in Syracuse, hence the “family plan” for the phones I pay for
every month. It’s money well spent. It doesn’t allow me to monitor them as
precisely as I’d like but it does make a noise every time I text therefore
forcing them to answer me at some point. Now it’s on their terms though. Sigh.
The best part about
the cell phone is that my husband can now text me from the grocery store and
ask me where he can find the garlic powder at Stop & Shop. I can almost
pinpoint it because I go so often I memorized the aisles by my second week
here.
“That’s aisle 7
Babe,” I tell him with confidence.
“Well, I’m in aisle
16 so now I’m walking over….I’m walking past the halvah do you want me to get
some?” he asks.
“Hell yes,” I
reply. “Do they have the chocolate covered one?”
“No, just the
marbled. Do you want me to get it?” he asks.
“Yes I do,” I tell
him. “Why don’t you pick up a couple.”
We have taken to
eating halvah every night. We think it’s delicious and nutritious. We do this a
lot. Delude ourselves about the nutritional value of things. I have carried on
long arguments regarding the documented fact that Guinness is the best beer for
you. It’s so good that it shouldn’t even be considered a beer. It should be
considered a vitamin.
If I didn’t have a
cell phone my husband wouldn’t have been able to bring home halvah for me. See,
years ago couples used to fight over the same type thing. The husband would
leave for the store to pick up the whole milk and the wife would remember she
needed a pound of butter and some Lucky Strikes just as his taillights left her
line of vision. Then, she would stew about it until he returned. She might even
pick a fight with him saying, “I was telling you I needed butter and cigarettes
but you ran out the door while I was talking. You never listen to me. You don’t
understand me,” she might say. We can now thankfully avoid what could have easily
turned into another divorce and more broken families.
I bet the
shareholders of Verizon don’t even consider this. Or maybe they do and that’s
why the whole cell phone business is so successful. They know us better than we
know ourselves.
Okay I’m going to
stop now before I get into conspiracy theories. By the way, I like them.
I like to remember phone numbers because it keeps your brain
active. If you don't use it, you lose it.
- -
Joan Collins
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