UnPlug

 UnPlug

I got my first cell phone in the late 90’s. 

For me it was more than a novelty.  I thought it was the most useful and necessary innovation since email. 

Particularly reassuring was having it on hand when I was alone traveling in my car. 

I remember an incident pre-cellphone days.

On a gloomy winter day, my nine-year-old son and I went to visit my sister. She lived about 45 minutes from my house.  

We left her house for home around 5 p.m. It was already dark and had begun to rain. 

The route home was along a poorly lit two-lane rural road. 

Halfway through the trip the rain was getting steadily worse and soon turned into a downpour. 

Between the swishing windshield wipers, and the glaring headlights of the oncoming traffic, I was becoming quite anxious. 

Still, I took my time, and calmy reassured my son that we would soon be home.

We were about two miles from our house when my car started acting up.  I coaxed it another mile and pulled into a little strip mall in our neighborhood.

It was a Sunday evening. Nothing was open. No phone booths around. 

So, in the pouring rain, on that dark and stormy night, my son and I walked the last mile to our house. 

We were cold and wet, but glad to be safely home.

Today, that amazing, useful device has become something entirely different.

It’s always on my person or very nearby.  I get panicky when I don’t know where it is. 

I try to stay busy during the day with other things.  I write or paint or knit and the day goes by. 

But doom scrolling has become my bedtime routine.  Sometimes, falling asleep while my finger is still resting on the screen.  

I’ve broken many promises to detach and unplug. 

Perhaps its usefulness is something different for me now, though.  

A connection of sorts to the woman who wants my opinion on which dress she should wear to the black-tie dinner she’ll be attending in one hour.