What It's Like to Be Me (Part 1)

One of the best ways to explain what it's like to be me is by sharing my history with cell phones. More specifically, the fate of each cell phone I have owned in the last 7 years.

Phone #1: Stolen by movers. I was moving out of my first apartment, and I set my phone on a bookshelf and left the room. When I returned, the bookshelf was gone, along with my phone. I tried calling it from my Mom's phone, and one of the men moving my shit said he could hear it ringing from deep within one of the boxes on the truck. I thought that was bullshit, but I wasn't about to accuse the men guarding all of my worldly possessions of theft. Everything on the truck was going into storage for a month. I was couch surfing. My Mom generously lent me her phone. For the record, it was returned intact. When I moved into my new apartment and looked through all of my boxes- Surprise! No phone. One of my television sets also "fell off the truck." Sadly enough, those were not the worst movers I ever had (but that's another story).

Phone #2: Aside from having a battery that wouldn't hold a charge for a full day, this phone stuck with me...up until my service was shut off. Goodbye, 646 area code. Hello, Family Share Plan. I miss that phone number.

Phone #3: I blame Stephanie. She was having an emotional night. I was talking her through it. Unfortunately, I had to be up for work the next morning, and I needed to take a shower before going to bed. Not wanting to abandon my friend in her time of need, I put the phone on speaker, and maneuvered the detachable showerhead around my body and away from the phone. Genius, right? Sadly, no. The phone still ended up getting wet. After drying out for 24 hours, it magically began to work. Except for the 4 button. But who needs a 4 button? Hmm...maybe someone who sends so many texts that their friends had to get unlimited plans. But no matter. Instead of g, I typed 9, because those look similar. For i, I typed 1. The h was complicated. The only number that looked remotely like an h was 4, and if I could type a 4, I wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. So I typed a hyphen (-). My logic? Hyphen starts with h. So if I wanted to say, "Have a good night," it looked something like this: -ave a 9ood n19-t. Obviously, I could only text people who knew my secret language. Hilarity ensued. It went on far too long.

Phone #4: Stephanie gave me her old phone. I have absolutely no idea what happened to it. I started using Phone #5, and it vanished.

Phone #5: My sister gave me her old phone. I still have it, but I lost the charger. Or broke the charger. I can't remember.

Phone #6: Finally! I got a free phone from Verizon. New Every Two, and all that. It wasn't one of those fancy keyboard phones, it couldn't go online, or check Facebook, and no, the camera didn't have a flash. But it was my phone. I recorded 30-second snippets of a Bruce Springsteen concert on that phone. We had some wonderful times together. Then one day, as I walked out of the subway station, I flipped it open to read a text. It snapped in half. I'll never know what that text said.

Phone #7: Funny story. Back when I was still using Phone #3 and driving friends crazy with my unintelligible texts, my friend Sarah gave me a phone. Verizon gave her a phone, and she used a Blackberry, and therefore had no use for this primitive device. After several trips to the Verizon store, we determined that, because the phone had never been activated on HER number, I couldn't activate it on MY number. This phone traveled with me from LES to Crown Heights to Washington Heights without being used. After Phone #6 snapped in half, and I determined that I couldn't afford a new phone, and Verizon refused to give me a new one, I found it in a box. I went online and tried to activate it. It didn't work. I went to the Verizon store. I explained the situation. They said they couldn't activate it. I tried online a few more times- Just in case. Didn't work. Sarah and I planned a morning trip to the Verizon store. We figured that if we both went, and if we yelled at the right people, we could get this phone working with my phone number. The night before this was to occur, I tried to activate it online again. Success! And that's the phone I still use today.

In March, I'm due for an upgrade. I've got a feeling Phone #8 and I will have something special. At least until I manage to break it in some spectacular fashion.