Can We Talk?

Maggie Simpson had her pacifier, George Burns had his cigar and Linus Van Pelt had his security blanket. Yesterday I realized that I too have a security blanket, the one thing I need to have with me twenty fours hours a day, for without it I would not be able to exist. My life would be horribly different, I wouldn't be able to function in society, I would lose my ability to reach out to my family and friends and good god, I wouldn't know what time it was.

My cell phone has become my security blanket and my security blanket has become my curse. It has glued itself to me like a blood sucking leech that won't let go until the battery dies, and with chargers at home, work and in the car I don't see that happening very soon. Until my job required it, I did not own a cell phone, wanted no part of one and was quite sure that I could survive my mundane day to day life without one.

My first cell phone ended that dream. Several years ago my regional VP told me that I would be getting an Iphone so that I could “be available.” He did not tell me that I would become available to everyone and everything and everything would be available to me 24 hours a day! This was not good, an Iphone is not an insomniacs friend. In no time I was calling, emailing, texting, tweeting, facebooking, facetiming, instagraming, Linking in, banking, shopping, skyping, setting my DVR, and playing games with anyone and everyone who also could not do without their security blanket. I even tried to see if there was an app that would let the damn thing make toast! No such luck, but it's a million dollar idea!

The worst part about it is that I actually talk to very few people on my Iphone. With so many different ways to communicate via my phone I never have to talk to anyone. Texting has become the way we talk to each other and that my friends is a very dangerous thing. I have had not one but several Ralph Kramden humina humina moments when I realized that my text had gone to the wrong person. Needless to say, those texts usually require an immediate phone call (or facetime if the other person has an Iphone) expalining why you just wished a plague and festering boils on their family and usually after receiving such a hideous text they don't answer your call, which leads to another text text that goes something like this "hey, that wasn't for you LOL, (insert smiley face with blush here if you choose) pretty funny huh, I don't really want them all to die." I have also had to respond to any number of texts with “that's not what I meant” because when texting there is no inflection for someone to hear and a smiley face or frowny face just doesn't do it.

Last Saturday during what seems like the one hundreth snow storm of the year I received an email from Valvoline letting me know that my car was due for an oil change. Then I received a text telling me my car was due for an oil change. Then I received a tweet from @valvoline telling me my car was due for an oil change, and like one of Pavlov's obedient dogs I went directly to Valvoline to get my oil changed. I was the first customer to arrive but moments later several other customers walked in and each one was looking at, talking to or texting from their cell phone. Not one of us made said hello, smiled at or even made eye contact with each other. I'm not saying that I needed to introduce myself and ask them all over for dinner, but I was astounded that there could be actually no interaction between any of us. For gods sake it was snowing like crazy so you would think someone would have said “hey how about that snow.”

We were all probably busy trying to explain the text we just sent to the wrong person. Call me.

A Little Self Loathing Never Hurts

Last week over 120 million people watched the Superbowl. I was one of those 120 million. I had no interest in either team. The Seattle Seahawks are a west coast team who we get to see very little of and the New England Patriots are at team that almost everyone loves to hate. I say almost everyone because there are some Patriot fans scattered about the country, most of them in hiding because it is very hard to associate ones self with a team that has been accused of cheating more times than Lance Armstrong denied doping.

Needless to say, I had no vested interest in the game at all. Or did I? I don't remember when they started but for as long as I can remember I have participated in SuperBowl box pools and please don't doubt me on this but they are the real reason 120 million people watch the SuperBowl. Sure, there are the commercials and the half-time show (no wardrobe malfunction from Katy Perry, so that was a bust) and even a great play or two during the game, but it is the box pool that keeps us glued to our seats.

I entered myself in two pool, one at the diner and one with an old friend from my previous place of employment. Two pools, I have to win something, right? Flash forward to the end of the third quarter and the score was 24 Seattle and 14 New England. Take the two last digits and you have 4 - 4. I win in the pool my friend was running! Six hundred dollars, and I'm dancing a hoochie-coo in my living room like nobodies business (luckily I was alone and when you are alone and win six hundred dollars you may dance the hoochie-coo).

That pool changed numbers every quarter so my numbers in the forth quarter were 8 and 1. 8 for the Patriots and 1 for the Seahawks. With 20 seconds left in the game Seahawks receiver Jermaine Kearse makes one of the most improbable catches you will ever see and is tackled inside the 5 yard line. Now I'm no idiot, I know what this means. I get up off the couch and slowly begin to do the hoochie-coo again, but this time I add a little slap on my butt after each hoochie because I know Coach Pete Carroll is going to give the ball to Marshawn Lynch, he will run the ball into the end-zone and I will win another nine hundred dollars! I'm hoochieing and I'm cooing and I'm hoochieing and I'm cooing and as I'm mid hoochie the quarterback from the Seahawks steps back and passes the ball right into the hands of a Patriot defender.

Shocked, I dropped to my knees threw my hands to the sky and in my best Nancy Kerrigan screamed “WHY, WHY ME?” furious that the Patriot defender was holding my nine hundred dollars. Just then my phone buzzes. Who the hell is texting me? I pick up the phone to see a text from the owner of the diner, it read “you win!,” next text, “$2000!”

How could this be I wasn't even paying attention to his pool, I had terrible numbers. I start searching for the pool and realized I had left the paper in the car. I dart (yes I can still dart when need be) down to my car and get the paper. Back in the house I'm looking and I can't see where I could have won. I had an 8 but no other matching numbers. I grab my phone to text him and see that while I was out looking for the paper he had sent another text “sorry that text was meant for Rony.”

I believe that time stopped at that moment. I don't remember turning the television off and I don't remember going to bed. The following morning I awoke to every sportscaster in the world reminding me of the travesty that Pete Carroll had bestowed upon me, how dare he cost me nine hundred more dollars. The drive to work was just as bad, I couldn't get away from the people on the radio telling me how unlucky I was, and they were right! I was the unluckiest person in the world. Until I got to the corner of Degarmo and Route 44. Most every morning there is a gentleman standing at that corner with a sign that reads “Will work for food.” He was there at last Monday at 5 o'clock in the morning in the middle of a snow storm with a shovel wanting to work for food, while I was lamenting not winning another nine hundred dollars on top of the six I had already won.

I was ashamed of myself last Monday morning for not embracing my good luck, and my good fortune to live in a warm house and have enough food to satisfy myself, to not realize that there are people who have trouble making ends meet everyday and live wondering where the next dollar is coming from.

I think not winning the nine hundred dollars was the best thing that could have happened. Thank you Pete Carroll for making the best play call in SuperBowl history, at least for me.