Disconnected from my Self Phone

I lost my phone two weeks ago.  In an age of instant communications, that had the potential for anxiety and crisis. Since it was an iPhone, it also cut me off from instant email, texts, sports scores and Googling to settle friendly bets. You know, the important stuff.

But I probably didn’t miss too many incoming calls, as I don’t readily give out the number to too many. I don’t want to be reached at an instant’s notice by anyone.

When I tried to replace it with a gently used phone bought on eBay (my contract wasn’t up, and I would have to pay full freight for a new one), that phone never arrived in my office. So the seller replaced it. Hence, a two week hiatus.

I’m back up and running again, but I lost nothing of value. In fact, my semi-vacation from instantaneous connectivity was quite nice, and I may simply opt to leave that phone in the off position sometimes. Just because. Is that much that we really need to have at our fingertips?

One additional benefit, when talking about the lost cell phone my son referred to it as a “self phone.” Having never actually seen the spelling in print it was an easy error, but a phrase that happens to be dead on target. The Urban Dictionary refers to it as a phrase for calling oneself, after presumably mis-placing the phone somewhere. But I like my son’s definition better. The self phone is my phone.

And now that I have a new one I can use it for its most useful purpose: Letting my wife know which train I’m on as I head home.