Me and Technology

You know, my cell phone went ka-put three days ago. Didn't want to pay the prices at the AT&T store, so found another option online. No big deal. It's supposed to be delivered tomorrow. Good.

However.

Yesterday evening I was supposed to pick up my middle daughter near her dorm to go run a few errands. My husband said I was supposed to be there "around six, six-fifteen." I was running late and got there at six-FOURTEEN. On time, right? I parked right where we had agreed to meet on a previous occasion and I waited. The first couple of minutes, I was fine.

Then I started worrying that maybe I'd missed her. More minutes passed and I was wondering what to do? Stop one of the college kids walking past and ask to borrow their phone so I could call her? Oh, wait. I can't even remember all of her phone number! (It's just "Shay" in my phone.) Which doesn't work, anyway. So, I could ask to borrow a phone and call my husband (or someone else) so that THEYcan call my daughter. How embarrassing! I figured that they don't have pay phones anymore, either, although I did look around hopefully for a moment.

I sat there, then, reminiscing about the days before mobile phones. How I would have found a pay phone or (since I probably wouldn't have the right change!) just walked into the commons area and use one of their phones. Which, maybe, I could have still done?

Or what about initiative from my offspring? Would she, getting more and more aggrivated about my not being there at six, remember that I didn't have a working cell phone? Would she check, again, to see if I'd arrived? Would she maybe think to call her dad, who would be able to tell her that I had left and should be there?

Anyway, about the time I decided to set a time limit before simply driving home, here came the girl. She didn't LOOK annoyed. She didn't SOUND annoyed. I asked her what time she and her dad had set for me to pick her up and she said, "Six-fifteen or six-thirty." Then she apologized to ME for being a few minutes late! I said it was okay and then told her about the time-warp dilemma I'd just experienced. Her reply? "Mom, you forget to carry your phone half the time, anyway."

Yep. She's right. My life...