Yes, Virginia, Trish Really HAS Become That Pampered By Technology

My cell, which is basically my cordless umbilicus to the world, spontaneously terminated my phone call to the pharmacist yesterday. I sat there in shock, jiggling the device in my hand as though that might help restore it to health. At the same moment, my husband shouted from the kitchen: “Hey! I’ve lost the signal on my phone. I was cut off mid-sentence with my dad. Do you have bars on your phone?” A quick glance at my screen proved our worst fear: no service.

As it turns out, when I am separated from my creature comforts, I panic. My imagination—always barely in check-- quickly took hold and I spun off into irrationality. My first assumption was that there had been some sort of grand-scale tragedy. I mean, what else could account for my cell having no bars, right? (Can you picture me out in the wild? I can’t. Unless, of course, I was in a fully stocked cabin in Michigan trying to keep my lushy sister-in-law from burning the place down…*cough,* Michelle, *cough.*) Terrorism, war, even UFO attack seemed plausible in my initial moments of alarm. I turned on CNN to see if there were any news reports about AT&T satellites being invaded by aliens or shot down by terrorists bent on unraveling our entire social structure by blocking our abilities to text one another. Meanwhile, my husband took a more rational approach: He plugged our old land-line phone into the wall and called AT&T. (I’m sure I would have thought of that…eventually. As it was, I mockingly plucked at the cord and queried in Cinderella's wide-eyed style, “Why, whatever is this? A phone necklace? Why, I’ve never seen a phone with a cord before!”)

The verdict: AT&T was experiencing a nationwide outage with no estimate on when service would be restored.

Faced with this shocking news, we clutched at our cells with the stunning realization that a defunct cell phone has relatively little value. Suddenly, our cell phones became worthless bundles of circuits and plastic. It seemed kind of silly that we’d spent so much for these items, so we determined to find some uses for the things until full service was restored. Here’s what we found service-less cell phones can be used for:

1. Paperweights
(Though this usage occurred to us immediately, we have very little wind in our winter-sealed home.)
2. cameras (Though I have to admit cells are subpar cameras without truly good flash bulbs.)
3. Portable photo albums
4. iPods (provided the music has been downloaded pre-service interruption)
5. digital Post-it notes
6. weapons
(We never used them in that way, of course, but the thought occurred to us that cell phones have enough heft to cause some damage when chucked at vigilantes. Of course, the screen would likely shatter. Hmmm…does the warrantee cover that?)
7. nut crackers (cells work particularly well on walnuts)
8. meat tenderizers (Bonus: You can even take a photo of the meat as you beat it.)
9. a flashlight for locating the matchbox car that slid under the fridge


Fortunately, service was restored before we had to become too creative. Scott was just starting to brainstorm ways to modify the cell phone for use as a taser when my inbox jingled with texts. However, please add your own ideas in case we ever find ourselves in this predicament again.