Technology Flashback

My poor parents. I got to experience life last weekend as a parent without a cell phone and I can see now how rough my parents had it when I was young. It all started before I left the house on Saturday morning. 

I'm not a very analytical person when it comes to numbers. I guess that's why when someone handed me some money earlier in the week, I sort of forgot where I put it. When my wife asked me about it, I had no idea where the money was at. As a matter of fact, I forgot who had even given it to me. My wife, on the other hand, is very numerically oriented. That's why she handles the finances in our house. It was with this loss hanging over my head that I ventured out to get the oil changed in my car. 

"Where's that coupon you found for the oil change place?" I asked her. She went to her secret coupon stash, found it, cut it out, and handed it to me. "Thanks!" I said reminding her how wonderful she was so she wouldn't be too mad at me for losing the money earlier. 

To make things even better for her, I loaded 80% of the children into my car and took them with me. She was only left with Zach and he's pretty self-suficient, so she was in for a quiet morning. Somehow between fiddling with car seats and losing money, I forgot to pick up my phone. 

When I got to the stay-in-your-car oil change place, there was no line so we pulled right into the garage. One of the employees guided me in as I parked the car on top of the pit where the drain guy was positioned. Within seconds he was reaching up from his subterranean perch and loosened the drain plug. Soon the kids were unbuckled, crawling all over the car and asking all kinds of questions. 

Ten minutes later, after never even leaving my car, we pulled out with a coupon for a free car wash across the street. I glanced at the coupon and thought to myself, "A free car wash would help make up for the money I lost." There was a short line, but not too bad when we pulled into the car wash, so I didn't worry yet about Mommy being concerned that we were gone too long. As soon as the car was done, I started to make a right turn out the parking lot when it hit me that I needed a two-dollar part from Home Depot. We were already half-way there so I might as well pick it up. I glanced left and right and saw an opening so I went ahead and made the turn. It was then that it first occurred to me that I should call Mommy and let her know that we would be home later than planned. I reached into my pocket for my phone only to discover that it wasn't there. "It'll be a quick trip," I thought to myself. "I bet we can still get home before she starts to worry."

When I pulled into the Home Depot parking lot, I saw that it was Customer Appreciation Day and that they were giving away free hot dogs and snow cones. "Mommy always appreciates free," I said to myself again. "But I sure would like to call her to tell her that we're running late." Keep in mind that the backdrop to all of this is that my brother had been in a motorcycle accident a week before and if I was late coming home and I didn't have my phone, she would probably flashback to that incident and become worried more easily than usual. 

No worries. It's a small town and I was sure that on a busy Saturday I would see someone I knew and would be able to borrow a phone. I rarely go out without running into someone, so I started looking around. I looked. And looked. And looked as the kids slowly chewed on their free hot dogs. With each bite I could feel Mommy starting to worry, but I didn't see any familiar faces. 

"Alright kids, let's get inside and do our shopping so we can get home before Mommy worries." After a few more bites we were inside the electrical section, through the self-checkout, and back in the car. Of course none of the lights worked in my favor as we cruised home, but we eventually made it. 

"Sorry, Honey," I said as I walked in. "I forgot my phone." I went on to tell her about all the free things and my two-dollar purchase at Home Depot. 

"You're right," she said. "I was just starting to worry that you had taken those kids out to lunch after losing that money and that I would have to kill you myself."

Okay, so we were on the same page about things. Just in a different book.