Objects: #5—My New Cell Phone

By Andrew Tibbetts (the handsome devil to the right!)

I went to take a picture of my new cell phone for this blog post. Then my mind had to do a mental flip because you can’t take a picture of something with the thing that you use to take pictures of things! Can you?! And then I remembered those mirror shots in dating profile photos. The main thing you can tell about a guy is that his mirror is streaky. Mine certainly would be, so I took this at work.

I have a new cell phone. It’s a blackberry. Now I get my email and my phone calls and my text messages all sent to me wherever I am. This has changed the structure of my life. I’m hauling the thing out of my pocket all the time to see what messages I have. And most of the time it’s disappointing. No, that guy has not texted me since the last time I checked fourteen seconds ago!

I got this blackberry by accident. I lost my normal, perfectly acceptable phone on my trip to the AIDS conference in Mexico this summer. I had signed my life away for my cell phone plan and they were going to continue to bill me for years whether I had a phone or not. So, I went on Craigslist and met a lovely young woman who wanted to get the new Curve and was thus willing to sell me her old cell for quite the deal! I didn’t know much about the difference. But now I do, now that I’m perma-wired to the net. To all the nets! Caught like a multi-fish in the multi-verse.

However, I’m not likely to give it up. Like the situation of a bad boyfriend, the potential pleasures hook you to the ongoing pain realities. There just might be a message. Let’s check. Nope. Let’s check again. Nope. Shut the thing down. Okay, turn it back on because there just might be a message. Is there? Nope.

But maybe there is… now…

…or now…

The process is neuroticising. Before my blackberry I had self-esteem. I was a man who got messages occasionally. Now I’m man with no message right now and no message now either and still no message and still no message and still no message…. I had no idea how many seconds of the day there were in which I was not receiving messages.

Email Andrew’s blackberry at andrewti@telus.blackberry.net and help re-build his self-esteem.