I’m Chris, and I’m a phone addict
So Sunday we drove down to Santa Cruz to spend 4 nights in our favorite rental house, right on the beach. Kids, grand kids and the great-grandson would all be there for a few days of kicking back and having fun, playing the numbers game.
Stopping at Safeway before we got to the house, I reached for my phone.
No phone.
I had left it on my desk at home.
How would I survive for 4 days without it?
I tried, God knows I tried. But not 10 minutes would go by before somebody wanted to know the capital of Kirgystan or the dinner menu at Shadowbrook or the atomic weight of Cesium and I’d be reaching for my indispensable connection to the universe, and it wasn’t there.
Gail couldn’t take it. I looked so forlorn, and didn’t have the answer to everything as I usually do–my phone and I know everything, By myself, I don’t know much at all.
She told me to go get it. I resisted–it’ seems really stupid to drive 3 hours just retrieve my favorite toy. Then I gave in.
So Sunday night I drove 162 miles round trip to go home, pick up my precious and return. The drive home was tough–lots of traffic and the radio reception is bad in the Santa Cruz mountains. The return trip had no traffic, and, armed with my iPhone, I had great podcast to listen to.
So I admit it. I’m hooked. I’ve got an iPhone on my back. I’m completely powerless in the face of my compulsion to be connected to Facebook and Google at all times. No 12 step program can save me. Soon I’ll be hanging out on Skid Row, begging for a few more megabytes of data. It’s a sad story.
Totally Unauthorized 
I leave my laptop home…. I have a cell phone I paid about $20 USD… that costs me about $2 a month for phone calls and text messages. By US standards I am “off the grid”…….Haven’t driven a car in 12 years…..nor have I paid car insurance… or paid for gas…. downloads are slow… reminds me of my 400 BAUD modem… my main concern is whether to take an umbrella on my morning walk each day. Stuck in a beach house for 4 days… I’d be sitting in the sand.. watching the waves… thinking about….hmm