All the Modern Inconveniences

Once upon a time, more than twenty years ago, I was a shift manager at Taco Bell.* The next step up was assistant manager, but when the store manager sounded me out about it, I was adamant. Heck no. Assistant managers had to wear pagers. They had to be always reachable. No way was I going for that. I needed my freedom.

Fast forward a few years, and some people had cell phones, but I didn’t. Never wanted one. I’m good. When the hubby decided he needed one when I was pregnant I still didn’t get one. ( “What if you go into labor??” “Who’s going to call you? Not me. I won’t have a cell phone.” )

After he passed, though, and I was a single parent, I gave in and took and used his cell phone. Single parents have to be reachable. But I didn’t have to like it. And that was easy, because it was a piece of carp from Cricket that rarely worked, so yeah. Didn’t like it.

I was the last person I knew using a flip phone. When I made the jump to a “smart” phone (I was all but dragged to the Verizon store!) it was still a flip phone. (I still miss this phone. It was freakin’ cool!)

Of course, I adapted. I moved on from the hybrid smart/flip phone when it stopped working well. I got a Samsung Galaxy S4-I-think. It did things. I found cool apps. I grew dependent on my cell phone, especially to kill time. I still resisted updating, at least until I’d paid off the last one.

Now, though, I’ve come back around. Last night I was looking at $150 phones, pondering just how much ability-to-screw-around I’m willing to pay for. We’re planning to move from Verizon to a more affordable provider, and we’ll need new phones. I’ll be darned if we’ll get a cheaper provider then go pay $30+ each a month to get new fancy phones. That’s not saving much!

And then tonight…with a friend texting housecleaning questions, and the kid calling and texting through a freakout about a banking mishap, and three people at my work wanting to solve a problem without talking to each other even though I’d left work an hour before, all while I was just trying to get a ridiculously bad for me but yummy comfort food dinner in the oven on the probably-last rainy night of the year knowing my luck…

Y’all, I’m about ready to go back to not having a phone at all.

*Did I just write Taro Bell? Yes. Yes, I did. Apparently I’m missing my friends in the Dream’verse.