What a Day!!!!!

 Greetings,


I have had a heck of a couple of days! It all started when I dropped my cell phone in the toilet! Before you go grossing out on me...there was nothing else in there but clean water. So, having that understood you are probably wondering how I dropped my cell phone in the toilet. Well, that is another story all together. Perhaps we will get to it in another blog session. Be looking for it! Now back to the real story. Believe me; you will want to read this one!

So, I dropped my phone in the toilet and, I swear to you, it was a fraction of a second that it took for me to grab it out of the toilet. Nevertheless, after immediately drying it off I checked to see if still worked. AHHHHHH! It doesn’t work at all. It won't even turn on! Oh crap, what am I going to do now? Everything I know about people is inside this silver colored box! I immediately felt my blood pressure rising and, I'm not sure but, I found myself on the edge of a full blown anxiety attack.

So, with sweaty palms and with my heart racing at about 900 beat per minute I assessed my situation. Well, I can't call anyone, I don't have a phone. Immediately I began wondering how I might have handled this problem before cell phones were invented. The problem was my neurosurgeon removed the part of my brain that stored that information! I was stuck! I had to come up with a plan that didn't include a cell phone. I was already starting to feel a little bit of nausea coming on so I sat down in a chair to think. How do I survive without my cell phone?

The plan I came up with was bold. To fix this problem took a plan that was both innovative and inexpensive. I got it...I will go and buy another cell phone. I had done it, between the waves of nausea and the pounding of my head due to the high blood pressure I had come up with a great plan, or so I thought!

Heading to Wal-Mart to purchase a new phone was a challenge in itself. As I drove I felt like I was all alone in the universe. I had no way of communicating with the world and the world couldn't communicate with me. I felt like I was in the middle of the Mojave Desert searching for an oasis or at least a telephone booth. Then I shuttered again because I can't remember what a real phone looks like let alone a phone booth. I wasn't going to let that stop me though; I was going to get myself back into the land of text messages and voice mails!

I arrived at Wal-Mart and hurried to the electronics department. My strides weren't long but to anyone who was looking at me had to know I was a man with a purpose. After checking to see if I had an upgrade available I picked out my phone. It has a few bells and whistles but the greatest point it had going for it was it was...free! I took Jacob's upgrade status and because Jacob had his phone at school I had to wait until he got home from school to activate the stupid thing. I don't know which is worse, having no phone or having a phone but it doesn't work. As I drove home I felt the overwhelming urge to call someone but that was impossible at the present time. My mind raced as I imagined the voicemails piling up! Oh, the humanity!

Well, I busied myself with other things during the day as I, impatiently, waited for 3:15 PM. That is the time that Stephanie goes to pick Jacob up at school. I could feel the surge of adrenaline that filled my body as my fingers readied themselves to, feverishly, dial numbers! I was so close and then.....Stephanie fell asleep and I fell asleep on the couch. We awoke at about 3:35 PM and we began to wonder why Jacob hadn't called. I quickly took her phone, which she was not happy about, and set off to find Jacob. He was the key. He was the one that held that treasure that would get me back in the cell phone game. I drove quickly, obeying every speed limit restriction, to La Junta Middle School. As I turned the corner I could feel myself getting excited about activating the, until now, dead new cell phone. I was so close and then.....NO JACOB!

Where had he gone? Why wasn't he there? I grabbed Stephanie's phone and dialed his number and this computerized voice came on and told me that the phone I was using wasn't programmed anymore! I couldn't believe it. It was like God wanted me to suffer through an entire day with no cell phone capability! What do I do now! I have two cell phones on my person and neither one of them work! I truly was a nomad traveling from place to place seeking something I cannot have. Just then, my mind began to work at a pace that, up until now, only the greats like Einstein and Plato had achieved. Churning the waves at Niagara Falls my mind spit out this thought. How do I find my son without a cell phone?

Refusing to believe that anyone ever found a lost child without using a cell phone I began to, once again, panic. The sad part of this was that I wasn't panicking because I couldn't find Jacob, I knew he would turn up somewhere, I was panicking because I felt even more lost than I supposed Jacob to be. Dear Lord helps me find my way back home! I have no means of communication and I feel lost in this world! Help ME!

Just then, Christine drove up behind me and told me that Jacob had called her and she had taken him back home. Relief flooded my soul. That relief was felt, not because Jacob was safe, but because I knew the answer to my sad predicament was finally within reach.

I arrived at home and, even though Jacob wanted to tell me the funny story of how he got home, my mind was focused on one thing...his phone. "Where is your phone, Jacob" was all I said. I quickly grabbed his phone and went upstairs to call the geniuses at Verizon. I dialed the number on Jacob's phone and waited for the sweet moment when my phone was up and running. The rings came and, after waiting on hold for 22 minutes, I heard "Welcome to Verizon how I may help you". I had been waiting to hear those words all day. Those were the magic words that set my cell phone free. Much like "abracadabra" or "open sesame", "how may I help you" was what I waited for all day. The problem was what the man at Verizon said and what I heard were two different things. Now, I have nothing against anyone who lives in India, I just can't understand them when they speak. YOU"VE GOT TO BE KIDDING?!!!!

I was so close and then...I can't understand the guy on the other end of the phone. However, it took a little time but I, finally understood what he was saying. Eureka! I told him what I needed to do. II told him that I upgraded on Jacobs number but I wanted to activate my phone with my number. Okay, cool, we can do this. The only problem was I had to call him on another phone besides Jacob's! You can imagine my response. I had three phones in front of me. I had a phone which wasn't activated, Stephanie's, which needed reprogramming, and Jacob's, which I couldn't use to call from. The room began to spin I was sure that a seizure was coming! I have always wondered what it would be like to be on the verge of a total mental breakdown. Now I know! "We can do this", the man on the other end of the phone said. Well, at least I think that's what he said. Whether real or imagined I heard him say that we can fix this.

He walked me through the reprogramming of Steph’s phone, the activation of my phone and, to my delight, placed insurance on each one of the phones. So, next time my phone takes a belly flop into the john, I am covered. At this point you are probably thinking two things; 1) This story has a happy ending and 2) I can't believe how long this blog is! If that is what you are thinking them you got one answer right and it wasn't number one!

After checking all of the 1,692 messages I had missed I began to think. All my contacts are in my old phone...and I felt something. It wasn't anxiety; it felt more like...loneliness. How would I call people? I never knew their numbers I just knew their names. If I wanted to call Dad on his cell phone I just went to
"Contacts">"Dad">"Mobile 1" and his cell phone rang. What was I going to do? This day has already been met with cell phone terrorism. What could be worse?

Well, I said allllll of that to say this....isn’t we a little bit like that story. In the business of our day don't we treat people just like a contact? Sure, we might know their name but we don't take the time to find out the details of life. They remain a contact by name only. Are we like that in our churches. "Well, there is Susan Pottermey, what an upstanding lady!” The real truth is that we only really know Susan Pottermey by name only. She is a contact in our cell phone world. That's it, no background, no details. We are too busy to get to know Ms. Pottermay. We don't want to take the time to get to know her.

I want to encourage you, this day, to step back from our cell phone world. By the way, the answer to my question of, "What did people do before cell phones?” is quite easy. The answer is, even before phones were widely used, people talked to each other face to face. Don't get me wrong, technology is wonderful. If it weren't for technology I wouldn't be writing this, enormously long, blog. My point is let us be people who seek to know others better. Let's be interested in people for what is inside them and not just the contact name that defines them.

I finally got my phone to work and, yes, I did load my contacts back into it. But every time I went to put in a name I stopped and thought about that person. Why was it important that they be in my phone? What do they mean to me? I found it very refreshing to think that there people in my contacts and they are important to me. My mom and dad are more than just the number 4 on my speed dial. People in my life are more than just the numbers I dial to talk them so I can quickly end that call just to talk to someone else. We need to slow down and think about those people in our phones. They mean something to us and we need to remember that. Maybe we should turn off our phones and go and visit them? Well, when we go to visit them I'm sure it wouldn't hurt if we kept our phone on and we just set it to "vibrate". Either way, recognize the ones who mean something to you today. You may learn something about them that you didn't have in your phone.   Until next time!

Blessings,

Derek