I Caved

I have done something I'm not proud of. It was something I said I would never do and yet... here we are. It is something I got mad at my husband for doing a few years ago. It is something I formed at pact with one of my coworkers about that we would be the last hold-outs.

I got a blackberry.

Now, before you go all "but you hate cellphones already and now this?!" on me, let me explain.

I work three days a week. My job is one that is very difficult to do in only three days. I need to stay connected with work in case a serious situation - or just one that needs my attention - arises. I've been carting my laptop around everywhere - convenient enough I always said. But geez, to drag it out of my car and out of it's bag and THEN to have to connect with the network and enter a bazillion passwords, etc. - I found myself not using it very often. So, I would check work emails from my home computer using the nefarious "Webmail". The problem was, Webmail didn't like my computer and for whatever reason, I could only open emails. I could not respond. So then I would have to open Webmail to check in and then respond via my personal email address.

That was no good because if person responded to that, I could only read it at home. I needed up having half of a conversation at work and half at home. Not good if you are trying to remember what you said you'd do about something.

Several months ago, I saw an ad for the Droid. As soon as I saw it, I knew Mike would come up with some reason why his blackberry was no longer any good thus necessitating the purchase of a Droid. At that point, I knew that when we would have that conversation (which we did about 14 minutes after I saw that first ad) I would ask for his blackberry cast-off.

Those of you who know me well know that I have long resented cellphones. I can remember in high school getting one of those 80 lb, enormous bag phones that had that tightly curled cord that you had to use all of the strength you could muster to stretch to your ear as you drove. I had that phone for ages and only in case of an emergency. I went to Auburn (War Damn Eagle) which was two hours away from home so I needed it in case disaster struck on my way to and from school. I kept that phone until many years later when I was in my first job post-grad school (Go Vols!).

I was living in Murfreesboro (Go Blue Raiders!) at the time and I traded my Acura hatchback for the much safer and more sensible Volvo S40. I was inside signing all of the paperwork - as you can imagine I got a superb deal on this vehicle. I was single and in there by myself handling the negotiations. Actually, negotiations probably isn't the right word. They told me what the price was and I paid that price. A practice I've learned since being with Mike is not at all how you should ever purchase a car, but I digress... - and one of the salesmen who was transferring my belongings from the old car to the new one came in giggling. This is not a direct quote because it has been so long since all of this happened, but he said something to the extent of,

"Hey, boss! Bet you haven't seen one of these since the 80's!!" at which point he triumphantly lifts up my bag phone for all to see.

People, including the aforementioned "boss" began snickering at me and I felt like I had just walked out of Amish country - no make-up, hair secured in a matronly bun. Surely no cultured woman would really still own a dinosaur like this. But then again, a cultured woman would have been smart enough to bring a man with her when she was buying a new car. (While I was there, I kept hearing a tearing sound which, years later, I finally discovered was the new one I was being ripped while I was at Darrell Waltrip Volvo.)

All of this to say, I was shamed into buying a real, actual cellphone. Of course at the time, I bought the cheapest one I could find. Again, I'm not buying into society's constant need to be connected to anything and everything. I remember at the time, a friend (who shall remain nameless for the purpose of this story to protect her identity) and I went together to buy them. We both asked for an easy to remember phone number (I think I chose XXX-FART for mine**.) and had to have explicit instructions to understand how this new piece of technology worked. Of course, it was the late 90's so this really wasn't new technology. It was simply new to those of us who had not yet embraced the future of communications.

Then, of course, time went on and I met Mike. He was Mr. Cellphone - couldn't do his job without one. He let me have his flip phone and he upgraded on one for himself, and so began our relationship of me getting his used phones and him getting the latest and greatest model.

The came the blackberry.

The reason I hate cellphones is because while I was living in Murfreesboro and working at MTSU, I would see students leave their classes and immediately call their friends, parents, whomever as though there was something critically important that just could not wait until later in the day after classes. My thought was, "how freakin' important do these people think they are?"

I just must be able to be reached at all times - I'm that busy and I'm that important.

I still feel this way, by the way. The fact that I am now a sell-out does not change this sentiment. But the blackberry elevated that to a whole new level. You could no longer have a conversation with someone because they were scrolling through their email at the dinner table. You no longer had anyone's attention in meetings, because they were click-click-clicking on their keypads responding to emails. It is ANNOYING! And everyone does it. I just don't want to be that distracted all the time that I miss out on things I need to be paying attention to.

AND - I don't want to start speaking in "texts" all the time. Texting is not really a word, by the way. "Text" is not a verb. It is a noun. OMG, it's a noun!! LOL!!! What self-respecting adult types this way? I can tell you a lot of them do. Text abbreviations look like some silly language I would have used with my buddies in middle school. I mean really, WTF?!!

My reasons for getting the blackberry were honestly very pure. I wanted to have the convenience of checking work emails on my days off. That's it. I don't need to be able to check the Internet from my phone. I don't need to download different songs so that my ringtone is cooler (or really, with my musical taste, lamer) than yours. I don't need all of those bells and whistles. All I need to do is check work emails and place/receive calls. Isn't that really the function of a phone? To call someone? Who decided we should be able to shoot videos with them?!

And don't get me started on the new word that I hate: "apps". This is a loathsome word to me. A grown person should not be talking about all of the cool "apps" they have on their phone. I remember when this word was used to refer to an appetizer when I was a hostess at a restaurant. I hated it then and I hate it now. If you have neat "apps", please keep it to yourself.

I'm sure that now that I have the blackberry, I'll wonder what I ever did before it. I'll probably never go back to a regular cellphone. I'm too good for it now I suppose. I bowed to the pressure to have one. I caved and I admit it. But I will not be zombie in meetings, at dinner, and in day to day conversations with people. I will give everyone my undivided attention whether I'm getting an email on my phone or not. I will...wait...
Wait. Hang on...
I'm getting an email...
Let me check it...
How does this stupid thing...
Oh, I press this...
scroll...
scroll...
scroll...
scroll...
How funny!...
LOL!!!...

Wait, what was I saying?

** For more information on how I arrived at this number, please see the next post.