Would you sell your soul for your cell phone?

Yesterday afternoon I had something happen to me that freaked me out, made me panic, made me feel desperate and then made me laugh at myself for feeling all of those things.

I lost my cell phone!!

Holy oh Hannah!  I was jumping through hoops retracing my steps, writing down all the places I'd been since I last saw my cell phone.  Let's see I had it with me when I did my 5 mile power walk . Yep had it with me then because I remember when the sweat was pouring down my face I took it off my fanny pack belt and put it on my kitchen counter....had it then.  Then I went to take care of some paperwork at an office, brought my brief case with me, and it was clasped to my purse in the little side pocket where it always is....I think.  Then I went to the grocery store, put my purse in the baby seat on the grocery cart (which of course they always tell women not to do....because dirty diapers have been where --the bottom of your purse is....euuuuu....well you get my drift).  But yeah, my purse was in that seat.  So it certainly could have gotten caught on the handle bar when I went to pay (the phone pocket is on the outside of my purse).  I went to the pharmacy and hiked my purse up on the counter to pay.........geeze I thought I saw it there.  Then I went back home, unloaded my groceries, could have sworn I saw the phone then.  And then I went to Walmart.  OH NO!!!! Not Walmart.  If I dropped it at Walmart I may never find it or have it returned.  I realized it was not in my purse when I went to use it at Walmart.  But I didn't panic at Walmart because my better sense told me it must surely be on my kitchen counter where I know for sure I saw it earlier in the day.  I only thought I put it back in the phone pocket of my purse.  Not to worry.  As soon as I get home, my "security blanket" will be right where I left it. I finish shopping and drove home--walked in the door, my eyes almost flew out of my eye sockets to the Counter ....NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO  THE PHONE IS NOT THERE! Panic immediately set in.  Humor me....it's my cell phone.  It's my security if I'm ever in an accident.  It's my means of calling to see if we need anything else when I'm at the grocery store.  It's my additional phone in case you can't get me at my home. It's the place I have all of the phone numbers of friends, relatives, doctors, dentist, beauty salon.....taxi cab numbers for taxi's in San Antonio and Dallas (I need them 2-3 times a year).

So I start one by one calling the places I've been to see if I left my phone on the counter and some kind benevolent soul found it and turned it in.  I even called my cell phone company to see if they could beam me up and see where my phone was (I'm sure that guy got a good laugh out of that question).  I did all of this after going with my portable home phone back out to my car and all over my house calling my cell phone number. But I couldn't hear that Mexican Hat Dance song that I have as my ring tone.  Come on ring, ring, gosh darn it all...RING! DA DA-- DA DA--DA DADADA DA DA........nope, the only ringing I can hear is on my home portable and that dang Mexican Hat Dance music is playing somewhere out there.  So the advise I got from the cell phone company was that if I had not located it by tomorrow morning to call customer service and have the number turned off.........cause heaven forbid some guy (or girl) would find it and call those 1-900 numbers and start charging long distance charges up the wazoo on my cell phone.  It's just so depressing, to have to get a new phone and try to remember all the numbers you had in the old one....and then get use to and give out a new number to 85,000 people (OK....maybe 85!).  I am in a major panic.

Breathe Peggy, breathe.  Calm down. Chill. Let it go.  It's not the end of  the world.  You're not out in the middle of no where in a blizzard with no houses around for miles. It's a cell phone.  You can get another one.

OK.  I'm feeling less stressed.....but let me retrace my steps one more time.  Empty my purse on the counter, Go into every room in my house, every closet, through every pocket of my brief case, unzip every pocket of my brown leather brief case...nope....I've looked there before for my cell phone in it's brown leather case....I did look there before didn't I.............go ahead scroll back up (I'll wait).....did I tell you I looked there before.......have you guessed by now....right there on my brown leather brief case attached to the side pocket was my brown leather cell phone case with my cell phone right there in it.  I guess I just overlooked it when I went through the inside of that case maybe a dozen times.  Oh good grief.....heavy heavy sigh (of relief).

Which brings me to the questions: What have we become that we are so dependent on a little piece of plastic that flips open and connects us to the world?  And would you sell your soul for your cell phone?" There was a time (come on I know some of  you remember it) when we did not have cell phones, when we actually asked someone before we left home, "Is there anything else you can think of that we need at the grocery store?" or "What is that brand of shirts you like so much?".  There was a time when we didn't have computers and were not nearly so impatient if information didn't come to us in a nano-second.  There was a time when children went outdoors and created games or rode their bikes with other children (or alone).  And they call this progress!?  But it's true, I have a computer and I have a cell phone.........and oh yeh, just yesterday I bought my first ever I POD.......now I'm not sure how to use it, but I think I know how to get my favorite tunes onto that tiny little shuffler that is barely 1" by 3".  And no I don't need the one that I can put videos on and I'll never need to have more than 500 songs on it at one time.  I don't need a phone that I can play a gillion games on or shoot a video on, (but it sure would be nice to sign on and get my boarding passes when I'm in a remote area and it's 24 hours before 6:00 AM when my flight leaves).

But the world is already moving way too fast.......so this summer I'm just going to try to chill out and make each day last as long as I can.  I'll listen to my music on my tiny I POD, write a chapter or two on my novel, read, walk............and oh yeah.......keep my cell phone super-glued to my body!