By Tashmica Torok
It finally happened. My iPhone has died. There is much sorrow and gnashing of teeth. Tweets have been missed. Texts have not been sent. The mildly urinated in water of my toilet has killed it.
If you are wondering how a toilet can be mildly urinated in, then you have never toilet trained boys who may or may not get all of the pee pee in the potty. Yaay for you.
My iPhone and I were connected. We could have been wearing matching pieces of a broken heart necklace that read “Best Friends Forever”. As I watched the dripping piece of Apple pie flicker to its death, I started to panic. My badges! My contact list! My emails! How in the world will I connect with anyone!?
I raced downstairs with my dying friend and dropped it into a container of rice praying to Steve Jobs that my iPhone would have a resurrection moment of Biblical proportions. 24 hours later and it was gone. I tried to feign indifference for my children. I didn’t want them to know that a little lack of technology could give their mother the shakes of a drug addict going through withdrawal.
I spent the rest of the evening pretending to not freak out. My eldest offered his allowance to pay for a new phone. My husband wafted between sympathy and the victory dance of a man dancing on the grave of his wife’s suitor. I put on my big girl panties and finished out the rest of the evening white knuckling it without my iPhone.
The quiet was unnerving. I wasn’t sure what to do with my hands during commercial breaks. The most important people in my world were all in the same room with me and I was a little worried about who else needed my attention. Who are we kidding? I was beyond distracted.
I went back to the rice covered iPhone helplessly hoping that this unexpected sanctuary would indeed be an opportunity for growth. God would not give me more than I can bear.
If this appears to be a little dramatic, I assure you that it was. I had no idea how much I had let my techy distraction interfere in my life. Upon further reflection, in the quiet of my mobile free life, I had to concede that I am completely addicted to my cell phone. It’s embarrassing but true.
Tashmica Torok is a local entrepreneur, blogger and community activist. Her blog, The Mother Flippin’: One Funny Mother, is about encouraging women to improve the world through thoughtful, honest parenting, responsible business practices and advocacy for those less fortunate. And laughter…loads of laughter!
http://mother-flippin.blogspot.com/
This article was printed in the March 17, 2011 – March 26, 2011 edition.
