Ode to the Cell Phone

Losing My Cell Phone Made Me Appreciate All My Possessions

Art by Cedric Smith and Lauren McEwen I VOX Staff

By Lauren McEwen
VOX Staff

Snowman-covered wrapping paper floated down to the floor as I ripped my brand-new cell phone from its wrappings. My 14-year-old Christmas wish was granted, and I raced to begin programming in numbers, forging a bond that I swore to my mother would not be broken for years to come. Sadly, the relationship between my phone and me wavered and threatened to fizzle out completely before I was given a rude reminder not to take it for granted.

Around 60 percent of U.S. teens own a cell phone, according to the Center on Media and Child Health. Forget all of the radiation threats and distractions from learning due to that devilish phenomenon called “unlimited messaging,” 37 percent of teens insist that they can’t live without their phone, and I’m a proud member of that obsessive 37 percent.

Every time I feel that little buzzing in my pocket (two vibrations for text messages, more for calls) or hear this week’s ring tone, I almost glow with happiness. For just one second, someone thought enough about me to call! For a very short period of time, I was in the foreground of someone’s mind. I probably send a couple thousand text messages each week, and once my unlimited nighttime minutes roll around, I’m yapping away until my phone is red hot.

For the first few months, I almost drew tears with each scratch that appeared on the face of my phone and dusted off the keys affectionately after each use. But our relationship didn’t remain this committed. I began to drop my phone almost as much as I used it, forgot to charge it overnight and left it at home in the early-morning rush to catch the school bus.

Finders Keepers
Then, on one dark day in the month of April, I committed the worst cell phone sin of all time—somehow in my own shamefully careless and ungrateful way, I lost it at school, only to have it snatched up by the hands of a stranger. Whether it fell from my pocket or I allowed it to lay unattended on some table somewhere, I’m uncertain. All I know is that one minute I was happily texting away and the next it was gone.

Using a phone I borrowed from one of my friends, I called my number frantically, hoping that whoever found my baby would be kind enough to return it to me. No such luck; the jerk hung up in my face.

To make things worse, this person then proceeded to reply to my text messages, hang up on my friends and pretty much attempted to kill my social life for about two solid weeks. But it was when the thief hung up on my manager, risking me my job, that I got truly angry. I ended my service quicker than you can say “raising the bar” and sent in for a new phone under my insurance plan—yes, insurance for a phone—only to be told that I needed to file a police report in order to get a replacement.

It wasn’t the ridiculous trip down to the police station, or the awkward conversation with a man with astonishingly ashy feet who was recently released from jail or the 30-minute wait for assistance while my mother nagged me about my “lack of responsibility” that made the whole police report thing a hassle. It was the fact that the officer acted as if I was crazy for pronouncing the phone stolen. In his opinion, it was my fault that I lost it, and whoever found it had the right to behave as if it belonged to him. I may be a bit biased, but that whole ‘finders keepers’ rule doesn’t apply to cell phones, social security numbers or cars, and I told him so, which got me my desired police report and the most strained smile I’d ever seen.

Insurance Plan Problems
When the three-day waiting period had passed, my new phone arrived. From the second I ripped it from the box, it dropped calls, failed to send messages and blinked off and on every two and a half seconds. Pretty soon the phone wouldn’t allow me to make calls at all, and I had to communicate with everyone via text message. This may not sound that horrible, but when your parents behave as if text messaging is akin to rocket science, it begins to become annoying.

At the end of long days of slinging chicken and selling lies in the name of fast food, I had to text my sister to have her call my mother to tell my mother to come and pick me up. It was awful! Not to mention that after work I had to sit at the darkened MARTA train station alone with strange men sometimes wandering around me and no means of calling anyone, let alone the police, in case of an emergency.

Introducing Cherry McEwen
After trudging along, useless phone in my pocket and disappointment in my heart for a month and a half, my saint of a mother took pity on me and bought me new phone. Her name is Cherry, and she’s one of my very best friends. And I make sure that I treat her accordingly. Never will she be left behind or misplaced in a moment of stupidity. I rarely even drop her, a real feat for the Champion of Clumsiness. I can’t get through a single day without her in my pocket, connecting me to the rest of the world and keeping me sane.

Cliché as it may be, absence truly made my heart grow fonder, but gratitude should never be merely the result of separation. I have learned to hold on to my possessions with care, never taking anything, or anyone for that matter, for granted.

As superficial and material as this whole cell phone spiel may appear, it was a lesson in appreciation that had to be learned in the hardest way possible and taught me to treat everything with care.

Lauren is a senior at Tri-Cities High. She loves the Smurfs.