You know how on TV and in movies, when an addict gets clean and then falls off the wagon and starts using again, there’s always a scene of him/ her crying while shooting up or sucking the crack pipe?
The face is frozen in a sobbing, rotten-toothed rictus. Then camera pans to zombie-like, drooling junkies all around on filthy mattresses. Some of them moaning and humping. A neglected baby cries in the corner. Soundtrack: Stevie Wonder’s Living For The City.
I feel like that whole scene every day with my phone.
Using, using and weeping.
I can’t stop.
Yesterday, I got eyelash extensions (love ’em) and it took lying on a table with my eyes taped shut to keep me from checking the thing for 90 whole minutes. I wanted to, but I couldn’t.
Everything I do triggers me to look at it.
Getting out of the subway.
Leaving the elevator.
Leaving friends.
Waiting for the light to change.
Someone else taking out phone.
Getting out of the shower.
One person ahead of me in line at Citarella, farmer’s market, public restroom, the terrible 13th Street Rite Aid.
Feeling a feeling, or sneezing a sneeze.
Steven getting up from restaurant table to go to the bathroom. All alone, must look at phone.
And when I’m bored of what’s on my phone? I look around for my phone. Forgetting I’m already looking at it.
I hate it. It’s gross.
I hate myself for it, and I hate everyone else for having the same problem.
I weave around people who are texting on the street, muttering “nice place to text.” I think, “People in Europe don’t walk and look at their phones.” And then I take out my phone.
I go for a walk, put the heinous thing in my bag while I listen to a podcast on headphones. Just listen. Just me and the sounds. No touch. No touchy phone.
Then, phone buzzes. Email? Text? Must. Not. Check.
Stick hand in bag just to clutch the phone while I walk. Makes me feel good.
OK, just look. Make sure it’s not urgent.
Not urgent. Put it back in bag. Take it back out. There might be someone paying attention to me on Facebook. Need my dose of red notification thingie.
Type while walking. Stop walking to type better. Move to the side, up against building. Write long, witty paragraph.
Rewind podcast because I missed several minutes while typing long, witty paragraph.
Take phone back out of bag one block later to see if anyone liked my long, witty paragraph. Hate myself for even thinking the word “witty” and for being on my phone. Hate phone for almost making me step in dog shit. I’ve lost my touch. I always used to see the dog shit.
Weep. I am weak and dirty. And so is my phone. Literally, it’s really, really dirty. It needs a new case.
Cue Stevie Wonder.
What about you?
Are you weak and dirty and self-hateful with your phone like I am?
Have you ever tried to quit?
TELL ME IN THE COMMENTS.
You can also ask me a question. I’m collecting them for future blog posts.
I can quit any time I want to.
I have withdrawals after not seeing my samsung galaxy for 3 hours.
I usually peek at it around 10 and 11 a.m. in my drawer, and during lunch and 2 p.m. in the bathroom. Like a good little addict.
I can always tell who is texting or emailing me. It taunts me. Saying: Trisha…come look at me! I g0t someone looking for you…
Well at least now I know I’m not alone. I didn’t think this would happen to me- but since I upgraded my phone in March I have turned into one of “those” people I can’t stand! I actually freak out if I forget and leave the house without my phone. I now wonder how I ever got along without it!
OK – A question: Do you read, watch TV, check your iPhone, and blog — all at the same time?
Sadly, yes. While talking to you on the land line.
Here’s a suggestion for a future blog post topic: My friend in Los Angles has informed me that practically every other commercial he sees on TV is related to vaginal products or law suits regarding vaginal mesh. What’s that all about?
So should the blog title be: “Vaginas: What’s That All About?”
Bruce, you know you can join a class action suit if you’ve been injured in a vaginal mesh accident. You should file a claim.
Yes, that should be the blog title.
(My original comment was simply “yes” by I received an error message telling me that my comment was too short and that I should try again. When I wrote my original comment about vaginas I was told that my comment was too spammy and that I should try again. So I removed the phrase “transvaginal mesh” and, voila, my comment went through. Or should I have said “wallah?”)
I dropped my phone and shattered the screen. I hate the way it looks. It’s actually repulsive. So much so, I won’t pull out my phone until someone calls and I’m forced to stare at its ugliness. Repulsion continues.
Works like a charm (or a repulsion curse).
I kind of like a shattered screen. I think they’re almost pretty. That’s how sick I am.
I thought I was the only sicko that tucked my phone in my bra while doing dishes!
I feel better I’m not alone… don’t you?
It’s the digital age Laura, we’re all sucked into it, most of us anyway the ones that aren’t, or say they aren’t, will be eventually!
That’s how I feel anyway.
Now for that question I tried to think up.
Similar situation, do you press the snooze button in the morning?, I never did, I turned the snooze option off and always got up, but I recently left my job to search for a new path, and I pave found myself pressing snooze, 2 maybe 3, ok definitely 3 times these days, and I’ve been unemployed in the past and still never gave in, but this time is different.
Am I becoming a slave to my snooze button?, to amend the title of a popular song by The Beach Boys, Help Me Laura
Phone? What phone? I’m fine with out it. I don’t need it. I can put it down anytime. ANYTIME! Don’t look at me that way. Sure I’ll give you my phone. Just need to finish this game of Spider Solitaire. Then….totally done. Really. And this text. Then for reals. I just…..two more minutes…..
Thank you. That’s an excerpt from my new one person show “Cell Phoned”. It’s a witty, raucous and uncompromising look into the dark world of our national addiction – the cell phone. Part monologue, part rock opera, part fever dream – you will find yourself weeping with laughter and sorrow all at once. You will feel whole again.
Actually for one sequence I do an interpretive movement experience incorporating amazing cell phone puns like:
AT&T and T-mobile got married, I heard the reception was terrible.
Don’t have phone sex, you might get hearing aids.
I crossed a cell phone with a skunk, and now the service stinks.
I got angry when my cell phone battery died. My counselor suggested I find an outlet.
My cell phone was going to sue somebody, but it didn’t have a case.
She became a telephone operator because it was her calling.
The IRS left a message on my cell phone that I owed them more money. It was a taxing message.
The young man quit dating the telephone operator because he felt disconnected. Besides, she had too many hangups.
They arrested a woman for causing an accident while on her cellphone….she was charged with driving while intalksicated.
Thank you for letting me share. It’s performing every alternate Tuesday for the next week behind the Snack Shack.
Bring your own chair.
Now come on. Did you google these? Or make them all up? If it’s the latter, you’re a genius. If it’s the former, you’re still a genius for “fever dream.”
I wish they all came from my brain but no. Deeply sad for this but no. Fever dream on the other hand. Yes. Damn right. You go brain!
I went off FB for a month for same issue. Luckily Twitter doesn’t do it for me. I keep checking it only to remember (again) that I don’t like it. Except your posts. Note: At the moment, I am on the acupuncture table listening to a Deepak Chopra meditation.
How did your month off go? Did you discover a whole other part of yourself? Like, your brain? I’ve been thinking of doing the same. But like, for 3 days, maybe.
Yours are some of my favorite FB posts, but I support you if you decide to avoid it.
My month off had its ups and downs. I missed it, I didn’t miss it. I felt inferior. I felt superior. Mainly I felt bored. Of course I wrote a blog about it (coming soon!). I will be back on this weekend probably, as my 10-year-old predicts, “going crazy all over that website”. But I hope to use it in moderation henceforth.
Also…thank you for saying you like my posts. Because I often wonder if I’m one of the really annoying FB people.
I, too, am addicted. You’re not alone.
Shall we start a support group?
Note to self: I must stop emailing you so much – not only am I addicted – I AM AN ENABLER.
xoxo
I love your enabling emails! Don’t take them away! NOOOO.
You know what would happen at the support group. We’d all sit around on our phones and pretend to listen.
If I didn’t have a business, I might not have a smart phone. The only thing I check is my four non work-related email accounts (I know), Facebook and sometimes I troll my son’s Instagram account.
But yes I’m weak. And addicted. And mine is dirty too.
As long as your son’s Instagram account isn’t dirty…
I would probably be like you, but I intentionally don’t have a phone. It’s pretty freakin’ nice.
P.S. At least you move out of the way when you are on your phone. I want to scream when people plant themselves in the middle of the sidewalk allegedly writing those witty paragraphs.
I’m sure you’re the smartest, and most landline-using, person in any room.
So a few weeks ago – for reasons that weren’t that serious, so don’t worry – I was sitting in the ER with my husband. It was the type of ER where there are a lot of curtains and you can hear everyone, but you don’t know where they are. Shortly after our arrival, they brought in a man who was very very drunk, but didn’t seem to have anything else wrong with him.
“Have you been drinking sir?”
::Chuckles:: “Yes.”
“Do you drink often?”
“When IIIIIII’m drrrrrinkin’!”
This is how I use my phone. If I haven’t succumbed to Instagram by 8 am, it will be a good day. If it gets its talons in me anytime while coffee is still around, I will be a phone junky for the whole day.
I’m a smartphone addict, but only when I’m smartphoning. I think it’s because I have to check (ALL DAY) for little notifications once I’ve started posting in the morning…or maybe I just get the hunger and no amount of touching my smart, smart smartphone can sate it.
That’s exactly it. You bait the demon by putting something out there for people to like and comment on, and then can’t stop checking for likes and comments. And when I say “you,” I of course mean “I.”
THIS IS ME!! James says “mom put down your phone” – yes my autistic son tells me to put down the phone and look at him!!! WTF! I am a sick junkie…
Recently considered deleting FB and Twitter apps – not there yet – Be glad you don’t drive on a regular basis – then you could be even more like me and feel even more vile, as you fail to resist the urge to check your phone at every fucking red light!!! xo
Right? Now it’s US who have to learn eye contact. It really is a sad state of things.
And Nancy, everyone is glad that I don’t drive.
I’m hooked on your dailies, Laura. And this post is so, so, sadly true about the state of people and their phones (I’m lumping myself in there too). I wish we’d go back to actually talking on the phone and looking at each other face to face rather than avoiding everyone. Because that’s what the phone is helping us do–dodge real connecting while we pretend to connect online. (sometimes that’s real too, but you know what I mean.)
“I look around for my phone. Forgetting I’m already looking at it.” I do this with my keys too.
And the red flag notification thing? Classic.
Keep writing these, you’re really funny and clever!
I love that you’re hooked, Stephanie! Makes me feel so powerful.
I’ve tried calling people on the phone and it scares them. It scares me, too.
I do that with my keys!
Laura, HYSTERICAL!!! I love that you mention the 13th Street Rite Aid and that’s it’s awful. Because it IS!! As for my phone, I’m not that bad, thank goodness, except when I get up in the morning. I wear glasses so if I can’t find my phone when I wake up, I look like a fiend!! You are hilarious!
Now Netflix. Netflix is my drug. You write about that and we’ve got PLENTY to talk about.
Thank you! It sucks, right? The way the line snakes into the stupid aisle with the school supplies and beach coolers? I hate it.
I love Netflix too. So much.
You and I could be dirty addict phone whores together. Sometimes I feel like I should be just tie off a vein and insert my phone. Ahhhhhh feels goooooood! You rock! Love ya, skanky phone ho.
It really does feel like fixing when you haven’t touched it in a while and then everyone goes away you get to take it out of your bag and look!
I have a stupidphone. Yes, it’s stupid. It can only call, or text. I have to buy stupid top-up cards to add value to it. Or go onto their stupid website to add more credit. And texting is like typing out a message on a stupid old phone. And the stupid numbers are slowly disappearing off the buttons. The predictive typing program is stupid. The ring-tone is stupid. It looks stupid.
But – the good thing about having a phone that is more stupid than I am is: it makes me look smart. Especially compared to all the addicts I see on the street. 🙂
Oh, that sounds so smart and stupid, all rolled into one.
Sometimes naked Sometimes mad
Now the scholar Now the fool
Thus they appear on earth: The free men
Laura, Laura, Laura…. I feel your pain, here is what I did- and I LOVE being a tad disconnected- a tad. I use my phone for 2 things primarily- a phone- you know the old timey kind you TALKED on- and to take photos- and an occasional text. Okay and maybe a game or two when I am waiting for an appointment in the dentist office- but that’s it! I don’t check facebook, or twitter or even my email-EVER. I pretend it doesn’t work that way. It infuriates my kids when they text me- I call them to respond- their response when I first started texting “Mom if I wanted to talk I would have called” Mine: “I am not having a texting relationship with you” Now if they text: “Don’t call me, I can’t talk, just text the answer (usually “yes, I can give you some money”) and I will call you later” Me: “ok, you better if you want the money deposited”
I TALK to my friends and family- and everything else- I save and do it on my computer- email, facebook, everything else- and when I go in the grocery store- I don’t take my phone in, when I go out to eat- I leave my phone at home, when on the rare occasion that I go shopping- I leave my phone in the car- I cannot tell you the FREEDOM I feel to be “untethered” to the wicked device- it almost feels like you are sneaking around- it’s THRILLING and EXHILARATING- in such a sick, demented way-
You CAN do it!
Freedom is a good thing. It’s funny…when I was a kid, I loved reading all sorts of science-fiction (still do) where people in the future had all these great devices, that they used for research (how to defy the laws of physics, mostly, but still…) And now that we are starting to get such devices, it’s all being used for such…such…banality.
On the other hand, if they starting coming out with smartphones that had a phaser, I might have to re-evaluate.
Beth, I was inspired by you today to leave my phone in my bag and not even insert my headphones to listen to anything on it. It was just for a 20 minute walk, but…baby steps.
I felt very high and mighty. FREEDOM!
LOL good for you Laura!! I swear it almost feels like you are cheating on someone or something weird like that when you don’t have your phone- because NOBODY knows where you are and NOBODY can get in touch with you- it IS a MIGHTY FREEDOM!!