Disconnection notice

Sometime last year, I experienced the utter horror that countless others have known before me: I lost my cell phone. It wasn’t stolen; I just left home with it and came home without it, with nary a clue of where it went.

Like a proper drama queen, I spent that entire day moping about losing it. I canceled appointments, skipped out on parties, passed up the chance to meet burlesque goddess Dita von Teese, probably annoyed a lot of people, and curled up miserably in bed, feeling sorry for myself.

Losing your phone is serious business.

To be honest, I wasn’t mourning the object itself. It was just a mess of wiring, plastic, and glowing LED lights. What I felt awful about was losing what the phone meant to me: that feeling of always being connected to everybody. I loved knowing that at any given time, I could pull my phone out of my pocket and talk to a friend. That, if anyone needed me, I would always be available — whether it be boyfriend stress, academic panic, good gossip, or just a “hi, I miss you,” I would be there for all of it.

It isn’t as though I was constantly being called or texted when I had it. In fact, hardly anyone ever texts me. (And no, messages from significant others don’t count towards your overall popularity, which means I am very uncool.) But being in possession of my phone and not receiving a single text message would have been preferable to not having a phone at all, wondering what was going on in everyone else’s lives, and being completely unable to find out on a whim.

I’d never felt lonelier. It wasn’t until I lost my phone and felt the intense urge to call someone and whine about it that I realized how necessary it is to hear another human voice sometimes. I wanted to talk, but in the age of cellular phones, nobody knows anyone else’s phone number anymore. I felt so isolated. If my computer had chosen that moment to conk out and deny me the joys of the Internet, I would have gone completely mad.

Some argue that gadgetry has made communication more impersonal, more distant. But in some instances, I think new technology has enabled us to become closer to people than we otherwise would have been if we were limited to face-to-face contact alone. I’ve had friends who have called me at ungodly hours soliciting advice or comfort, and I’ve always been grateful that technology has allowed me to be there for them, and enabled them to be equally there for me in moments of need. This technology has made my friendships stronger.

Even better, our cell phone service providers have been setting the bar higher for those of us who prefer calling over texting. (Text lingo gives me migraines.) When I got my first phone in 2001, I had to put up with text replies that were impossible to decipher because my friends and I were too cheap to call each other.

One month of unlimited phone calls for P500 was unheard of then, but it’s a reality today. SMART, for instance, is making this possible for its subscribers with its new Smartalk, so now people have no excuse to be sending me poorly spelled text messages I can barely understand. Not only are our providers making communication easier and saving us money, they are also preserving my delicate sanity. I don’t have to figure these ridiculous texts out anymore. I don’t have to worry that important calls will be cut because I’ve run out of credit. The second anyone I love has a problem, I’m on it with no reservations.

Before I lost my phone, I used to be one of those people who always said that I could live without one. I barely even lasted two days. At any given time, with the push of a button, you could be talking to someone you care about, wherever they might be, whatever they might be doing. It’s possible to live without that (after all, we did it before), but why would anyone want to?

The weight of my phone in my pocket or purse is a reminder that I am always connected. I have the assurance that, if I have good reception and friends who actually like me enough to not cancel my calls (and I think I have a few of those, or at least I hope I do), I always have somebody. It’s a beautiful thing and I don’t take it for granted.

Two days after I lost my phone, I found it in my closet. It had fallen out of my back pocket right into a sneaker. This is possibly the dumbest way a cellular phone has ever been lost, but I was overjoyed to have it in my hands again, and even happier to be able to call my friends and hear them laugh about how ridiculous I was. After an agonizing 48-plus hours, I was back on the radar. And my phone has taken up permanent residence in my front pocket ever since.