touch screen vs. the mole rat

For those of you who don't know, I'm actually a dance major.  So... business man by day, performer by night.

Well so, last night, I tried out for West Side Story.  I was changing into my dance clothing for the dance audition and I had just stepped out of the restroom and walked around the corner to stretch and warm up when someone started yelling, "Hey you needa get in there right now!  They called all the guys back in!"

Trouble.

Of course, I'm the one who's running late.

So I throw down everything, my bag of clothes, my water bottle, my cell phone, i think, and rush into the room and have a great dance audition.

Where's the conflict?

"I throw down everything... my cell phone."

So the night goes great, I'm pretty happy with my audition and in the chaos of it all, I lose my cell phone.  I'm standing outside the audition room, it's 9:30.  All the other auditionees have gone home.  And here I am.  Sulking and freaking out because my cell phone has gone AWOL.

Mind you, this cell phone has been pestering me for all its lifetime under my possession.

I'm a text fiend.  And touch screen phones make it impossible to text quickly.

Needless to say, my phone and I fought.  A lot.

Anyways, for the next 15 hours or so I'm missing my cell phone and freaking out.  Happy with my audition but too freaked out to really relish the moment because what I feel is my connection to the outside world is gone.  

Thankfully, Cingular has a wonderful system of restoring your number to you, quite easily, too.  I really have to put a plug for them.  Their connection lady was American and very easy to work with and incredibly patient.  

What have I learned through this?  

Man, we really depend on cell phones.  

I mean I'm sure back then a college student could be just fine without one.  Unable to talk to his parents until he got home, or on his phone in the dorm room.  Communicating with old friends meant letters, not facebook, texting, and email.  

Oh but now.  

We lose our phone for a day.  We lose the internet for a day.  We do whatever it takes to get that sucker back in working order.  It's crazy.  

All that to say, I think we should examine our dependance on technology, and try to remember that it serves us.  We are not a slave to it.

On the plus, I lost that janky touch screen and regained my good ol' sturdy black flip phone that's as large as baby mole rat and as resilient as titanium.

john.