I was standing in line at a drugstore and noticed the gentleman beside me looked embarrassed. He hunched his shoulders apologetically and then glanced at the teenage girl beside him.
I recognized his pained expression. The face of the girl was an eerie blue; she looked like a pale, thin Smurf.
His daughter had cellphone face; it’s when the blue light bounces off a teenager’s transfixed face, leaving her looking vacant and disconnected. Her head was frozen, her arms jutted out from her body at right angles, fingers clutching the phone, thumbs flying.
The man looked at me and said, “She’ll have arthritis in her hand by the time she’s 20.” She looked up and said “WHAT? I’m not being disrespectful. It’s not our turn yet! No one’s talking to us yet!”
“I have two teenage sons,” I said. He looked relieved. We parted ways united in the knowledge that we weren’t the only ones trying to get our children to raise their heads and look away from the light.
Later that same day, my sister called to say she was forwarding a series of e-mails — about Jesse’s cellphone. Jesse’s my niece, a college sophomore.
Seems her cellphone died. I asked her permission before I wrote this column. Because the trauma has mostly been resolved, Jesse granted it.
When the phone failed, she contacted her parents by e-mail. “My phone is officially so royally dead. It won’t even turn on. I feel lost and confused without it. I’m in a mild panic. MOM! What am I going to do?”
Jesse is not without drama.
Her dad, a pastor and no stranger to actual, real-life, drama, replied: “Sorry to hear this news. This is Mom’s department. I will let her know your plight. I’m praying for you — I know this is one of the hardest things you’ve ever faced, but you will get through it. You have a strong faith and so much inner strength, and these two things will sustain you through this time of trial. Love, Dad”
I thought this hysterical. I immediately sent off my own e-mail. I gave my condolences, asked her when the royal services would be held and made some fairly detailed suggestions about employing blinking desk lamps, knocking three times on the ceiling, twice on the pipes, the practicality of Morse code. I cracked myself up.
My sister’s response to her daughter was practical: “Go to nearby repair center. Worst case you wait three days. Best case you have same phone in a few minutes. Still under warranty, plus total equipment protection plan.”
I read the e-mails to my sons. They didn’t think they were funny. “What’s she going to do?” They asked. One said, “Do I have the protection plan?” The other said “How did it die? Why did it die? Could mine die?”
Then my niece did me a favor. She took my teasing, and her father’s, and responded in all seriousness — not always easy to do when you’re being teased. In her own words:
“Interestingly enough, a dead mobile phone is wonderful. Somehow, I have more time, less interruptions and fewer demands. As a college student/freshman RA/social butterfly, I normally sleep with my phone under my pillow. I’m always on call for my family, friends, boyfriend and residents. I use my phone as my alarm clock, I use it to check my e-mail, Facebook and the weather, I use it to make calls, send texts and record memos. My cellphone is my personal secretary. It orchestrates my personal WORLD. It is a bit of a tragedy to realize you are not as important as you thought you were. Oddly enough, the world is still moving, the people I love are still breathing and the residents I serve are still thriving. It is a relief to know the people around me are not as demanding as my little black phone makes them out to be. It’s liberating and I suggest everyone tries it at some point.”
Bravo, Jesse. I couldn’t have said it nearly as well.
E-mail Fort Collins poet and writer Natalie Costanza-Chavez at grace-notes@comcast.net. Read more of her essays at .
