I Tried Dialing It In But...

In a rush to get out of the house this morning to make it to the city, I completely forgot to grab my phone.  That mistake completely fawked up my day.

I drove a good 20 minutes out to the major highway from my cozy home in IN.  Right as I got on the major highway I realized, "Hey, where the fawk is my phone?"  I drove 90 miles an hour to the next major exit, pulled over in a waffle house parking lot, and tore apart my car looking for it.  It was nowhere to be found.

Motherfawker.

So, I had a decision to make.  Do I drive back through traffic to get my phone and put additional pressure on myself to get into the city on time for a very important appointment or do I forgo the quest and contiue without it.  Eventually I decided on the latter after driving an additional 10 minutes back towards the house.  By the time I gauaged that I would have probably 30 minutes to get to Chicago from my house, I decided it'd be a bad idea.  I drove like mad back to the highway and proceeded to beat myself up for it.

I quickly realized today that my smartphone is a very capable of making me look very stupid when it's out of my possession.  It's the main way my family can get a hold of me.  All of my extra-curricular activities I lead are based off being able to get email, text, and phone calls through that phone.  From a work perspective, I can work from anywhere - as long as I can get online - and I couldn't do that without the damn phone.

I was thrust into pre-1998 - there era where I lived my life without a phone.  I went into my mental rolodex of how the hell I used to get by without a cellphone:

• Payphones and calling cards - ubiquitous back then; now, you'll be luck yo to find one in your local mall.
  
• Going into the office - I don't really have an office anymore.  I was in the vicinity of the office downtown but parking is expensive and there's a ton of construction down there forcing everyone to get even more aggressive in finding free parking.  It would've taken me around 2 hours round-trip to find a free parking spot somewhere, walk over to the office building, work, and then walk back.
  
• Voicemail - people still use this nowadays but back in the day, it was a lifeline to be checking it night and day; otherwise, you would have a full inbox and miss crucial information.
   
• Just go off the grid - yes, there was a time in my life people just couldn't reach me.  sometimes I go on self-imposed episodes where I turn the phone off, but in the back of my mind just knowing that all I have to do is turn my precious phone back on to be reconnected was comforting.  Wondering around the city today with it being virtually impossible for me to be available was a hard shift.

I've siphoning off bandwdsth from local Starbucks stores to make the experience a bit more tolerable.  I have been able to attend some conference calls via Skype.  I was also able to get and send emails as needed.  I notified everyone on my social networks that I was rolling dark and would be relatively difficult to get a hold of quickly.  I covered my bases.

I got to work on memorizing lines for the show, catch up with some friends at Uncle Julio's (near the Starbucks I was working at), and visit some stores I like going to (and almost never by anything from).  Overall, I feel like I again took a vacation from myself; however, this time it was forced :)

It was a but liberating to be off the grid today.  I told the Wifey she should do the same soon as I know she would enjoy it.  I'll take the day off from work, she'll feed the youngest one, then leave me with them to fend for ourselves until after bedtime. The though of being left alone with two kids is unpleasant but the thought of her enjoying herself and getting her mini-vacation is worth it.  I love my kids but damn they're a lot of work :)

OK. Back to line memorization. 

End of Line.