For the love of a cell phone...

For the last several weeks, my greatest, most sincere desire has been to drop off the grid. People who know me outside the virtual plane have commented how I need to take a break, maybe shift gears, recharge, and gain perspective. My mother even recently offered to take me shopping, just to give me a day off. I turned her down, but I told her, the one thing I really, truly wanted, was to find a cheap hotel, with clean sheets, a clean shower, no internet access, let no one know where I was, and just spend a couple of days there. She sympathized, but it didn’t go beyond that.

Every so often I get this way. Being constantly connected -- the cell phone, the internet, e-mail -- people wanting me to be places, needing things from me, just wanting to spend time with me -- it gets to me. Wears me down. I have to go some place, or go no place, just close the blinds, and spend time with me, alone with the voices and thoughts in my own head. However, as things often happen, when I get like this is, the universe often conspires to remind me how good and nice it is to be so connected.

Several years ago, after my father died and before 9/11, my mother flew out to visit my brother. When she returned, I went to the airport, a little over an hour to an hour and a half trip one way, to pick her up. Along the way, about fifty miles from my house and about thirty from hers, my car started overheating. I let it cool down and doubled-back to her house, where I exchanged my car for hers, which I fortunately had a key for, and started out again. By the time this was accomplished -- I had also taken the time to use the bathroom and check her flight status online -- I was running late to pick her up. I found myself on the interstate, about thirty minutes from the airport, thinking, “For the love of a cell phone…”

At this point, neither my mother nor I had purchased a cell phone. This was in 2000. Cell phones were common, but it still wasn’t completely unheard of for someone not to have one. Only Sprint offered anything resembling a nationwide plan, which wasn’t really nationwide, there were no rollover minutes, no calling circles, and no family plans. People had not yet started abandoning their landlines for cell phones. Cell phones were still supplemental, a convenience, not a necessity.

Later, I learned that about the same time I was thinking, “For the love of a cell phone…” my mother was having the same thought. She was in the airport. I was not there. She had no idea where I was, and her mother’s imagination started working overtime. Logic and reason won out and she realized that she could not go looking for me. That I knew exactly where she was, but she had no idea where I was.

We did eventually reconnect, I rescued her from the airport, and shortly thereafter, we both purchased cell phones, just for those little, “where are you” and other roadside emergencies.

A few, very short years later, I had already grown tired of always being connected, always being able to be reached. Therefore, while driving to my brother’s for my nephew’s first birthday, I turned my cell phone off. I figured anyone trying to reach me could go to voicemail. I wanted to enjoy the road and the drive the way I used to, just me, the road, and my thoughts, alone together. Along the way, a couple people I knew did try to call. Someone who had even been driving and seen and recognized me along the road had even called. They all went to voicemail. As I crossed my second state line, I did relent and turned the phone on long enough to call my mother and check on her flights, and to call my brother in order to let him know my progress and estimated time arrival, and then I turned the phone back off and tossed it back in the passenger seat. That is, until a few more miles down the road, when I got off at a rest stop and, halfway up the ramp, the car suddenly convulsed and died, leaving me to drift to the shoulder. When I got out to figure out what was wrong, antifreeze was leaking out onto the ground. So not good. Fortunately, because I had the cell phone, I was able to call people, let them know what had happened, where I was, and arrange for assistance. I was very glad for technology at that moment. I was happy to be “on the grid,” as it were.

Fast forward to this week, and me desperately wishing I could just “go away” for a couple of days. On Monday, I had to make a quick run to campus. On the way home, I blew a tire. No big. Although I was, once again, on the interstate, I was no more than seven miles from home when it happened. I put on the spare and started back on my way. I didn’t make it the full seven miles before the spare blew, too. Not my day for tires, apparently. However, this time, I was only about three miles from town and about a mile from my mother’s companion’s house. With trusty cell phone, I called them, let them know what had happened, and that I was in need of assistance. They were at the grocery in the somewhat larger town north of us at the time. As I walked away from my car, to the companion’s house to sit on the front porch and wait for them, I was also able to call That Barb Person to whine and later, once I was comfortably on the front porch with my feet up, watching the horses graze in the pasture on the adjoining property, I also left a message regarding the event I was supposed to attend that evening to let them know not to expect me. The person in charge called me back a short time later to make certain I wasn't still stranded somewhere. Throughout the evening, my mother and I exchanged several phone calls, coordinating everything from repairs to dinner.

Once again, I was reminded that being connected, being on the grid, is not such a bad, horrible thing. It has its definite advantages. Used properly, as a tool, technology really can help make the world a better, more unified, and somewhat safer place.