We'd driven about 15 minutes away from my parents' place in NJ when I realized I'd left my cell phone there.
"We'll give it to you tomorrow morning when we come back into Brooklyn," my mom said when I called to make sure my phone was there.
"Ok," I replied, trying to be reasonable. It was Memorial Day, after all, and who knew what the traffic would be like getting back into the city. It didn't make any kind of sense to waste a whole half hour driving back to retrieve a phone I could have delivered to me in less than 24 hours/
"I can last until tomorrow,"I agreed.
But really I was thinking, HOW??????
Thus began my wireless-less day. Which, frankly, wasn't even truly unplugged, because I still had my cordless home phone, computer, iPad and David's cell phone at my disposal. That's FOUR OTHER electronic devices with which to communicate. Still, who are we kidding? It just wasn't enough.
It was an instructive 18 hours. What I learned was this: I am totally fucking addicted to my cell phone. Big-time. It's not that the fact of my addiction surprised me, but the extent of it did take me aback. Essentially, I couldn't perform any of my regular tasks without the use of my phone. Life stopped in its tracks.
The baby was hugging her sister and I wanted to take a picture. No camera.
We needed David to pick some milk up but alas, I can not text with my brain alone. My brain lacks wifi.
We were at the playground and wanted to see if my sister could meet us but I could not call her - not because I lacked a phone (we had David's) but because how the hell would I know her number without my contact list? What is this, medieval times, where people retain addresses and last names and shit like that in their minds?
Primo told me something hilarious which I fully intended to blog about but when I went to ask Siri to remind me to blog about it, SIRI WAS NOT THERE.
"Oh my God," I said aloud, "I will need to remember this idea MYSELF. Old school style. I will have to serve as my own Siri."
"Mommy," Primo giggled, "You are addicted to your cell phone."
"See?" I replied, "I'd like to put THAT in my blog but how will I remember it without the voice memo app?"
"Its good to have a wire-less-less weekend," he told me, "It builds character."
Clearly, he was right, since as you can see, I emerged victorious, having recalled my blog post topic including my son's pithy, cyber-friendly sound byte.
That's not to say I'm going to attempt to wean myself even one iota off my phone. I'm too far-gone. If this love affair with my phone is wrong, I don't want to be right.