The last couple of days have shone an interesting light as to how much I take my ability to communicate for granted. I'm one of these technological junkies that loves to be connected to the EVERYTHING! I'm a smart phone owner, it's like an electronic extension of me. Now, if you take my connection to the everything away from me it's like trying to cure a drug addict overnight. I'm seriously addicted to technology. Even to the point of it making me twitch.
Case in point, yesterday my Droid RAZR decided to spontaneously reboot as I connected it to a charger. It wasn't evident how serious this was until I tried to send a text message a few minutes after said reboot. Turns out my phone's antenna, you know, that wonderful piece of kit inside the phone that connects you to the mobile phone network, had decided that it wanted to take an infinite sleep and no longer function. Several power downs later and a hard reset and it was still as dead as Macaulay Culkin's acting career. I did try and convince myself that there was a network outage and it'd be back soon but alas no dice.
I immediately started to panic. I was enroute to a horse show about an hour and a half's drive from home when It really did hit me. I'd be in complete communication blackout. My friend who was accompanying me on said trip had her phone with her. A dumb phone. It sends text messages and makes calls. Unlike my fancy phone that has the Swype funciton to send texts, with hers you have to manually press each button repeatedly until you get the letter you needed. No predictive text, no Swype, just repetitive thumb action that my thumb hasn't seen since the first generation 'smart phones' some 10+ years ago.
When I arrived on location of said horse show and had taken care of the horses as well as setting up camp for the night, my friend was very gracious and allowed me to make a few calls. One to a rather distressed boyfriend who thought I'd died (we're in a Long Distance Relationship (LDR)) because I hadn't said anything to him for several hours and one quick call to my parents who were taking care of my daughter while I was away overnight. Then there was the panic that I needed to keep in touch with my daughter's father (we're on texting and emailing terms ONLY) because it was his designated chat day on the Saturday.
I will say I almost caved. I almost bought myself a burner phone just so I could keep in touch with my SO (significant other) and have a backup plan. Then I saw the cost and weighed up the pros and cons and convinced myself that I could indeed do without for 24 hours or so before I am able to take the phone into the provider and get it seen to. I was resolute that I wasn't going to cave to that kind of pressure though I will say I did stay up rather late last night trying to get that fucker to work.
This morning, after an abysmal dressage test on my friend's horse (that I ride) I decided to try one last thing. I copied all of the data across to my netbook and then decided to do the dreaded factory reset. I held my tongue in a special way and took bated breaths but no, even after that it was evident that I had a weapon of mass deception. My phone was still relatively useless (and hardly a weapon).
After the show and the drive home I went rummaging to look up my insurance plan. I looked through the plan to find out it didn't cover electronic malfunction. I was about to go into a full on panic because this sounded very much like an electronic malfunction but I took a deep breath and read through my phone's contract to see that my warranty is for 24 months. Very relieved as this phone is barely over 12 months old. So, tomorrow I will be heading back into my provider hoping that I'll be able to send it away to get fixed and obtain a loan phone in the meantime.
I must say I did indeed survive the 24+ hours without my phone. I've learned to be thankful to actually have technology and have a new respect for the old phones that aren't particularly smart but still do their job. My SO is still alive. He was relieved to hear from me when I connected via a Skype call some hours ago. My daughter's father dealt with the fact that my phone has been 'bricked' without too much of an upset and more importantly the world still turns. Though, truth be told I still feel a profound sense of loss. Maybe a beer will help with that!
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