An Explanation About Our Cell Phone Situation

It's no secret, but I'm about to drop what is considered a major bombshell in today's American Modern Culture:

I don't have a cell phone.

(I'll pause while you are perhaps slightly stunned and shocked into silence)

And...

Get ready for it...

My wife doesn't have one EITHER.

I know, I know.  How DO we communicate with each other?

Smoke signals?

Clicks and whistles?

Pot banging?

This fact is probably the number one conversation killer that we have with people.  It's inevitable, really.  That moment when you are talking to someone about something and the conversation goes a little something like this:

Unassuming Friend:  What's your number? I'll text you later.

Me or My Wife:  Well... we don't have a cell phone...

Unassuming Friend:  [blank look, perhaps long stare, maybe a squint of disbelief]

Me or My Wife: I mean, we have a cell phone, but it's a ten dollar walmart phone and we don't really use it, it's just for emergencies when we're traveling somewhere. We do have a landline, though.

Unassuming Friend:  Uh, okay.  Um, all right. I... I guess I could... call you later.

Me or My Wife:  Or... maybe you could message me on Facebook... if that's easier.

Unassuming Friend:  [sigh of relief] oh, yeah, definitely.  I'll just do that.

See, what I've noticed is... we've become a nation of text-ers.  And, I'm not opposed to that, I get it.  Back when we had cell phones, it was very, very easy and convenient for us to text others and receive texts as a way of communicating (except if you had one of those phones with no keyboard. Then, we HATED texting. It was of the devil trying to maneuver that stupid keypad.)

Funny and true story - A woman from my wife's work wanted to invite our kids to her kids' birthday party. She kept texting the info to our landline, and got offended we never texted back, until my wife reminded her that she wasn't texting to a cell phone.  Then she laughed at herself.

Why don't we have cell phones?  Well, the simple reason was that we had to choose (budgetary constraints being what they are). We either could have internet at home and a landline, or two cell phones (with one being a smart phone so that we could have some sort of internet access).

Well, we did the two cell phones for a while, and it made internet stuff difficult. I needed the internet to search for agents and publishers, and ultimately do this blog.

And, really, our ten dollar pay-by-the-minute walmart phone is fine for now.  We barely use it, after all.  Although, it's so flimsy, it doesn't even seem like a real phone. The baby's play phone actually feels more realistic.  A positive thing about this is that we don't ever worry about it getting stolen.

One day we will get cell phones once again, and perhaps the sun will shine brighter, the sky will seem bluer, and the texts will fly from phone to phone and I will look back at these days as the "good ol' days."

Meanwhile, don't text us.  It just goes into the black hole of cyberspace.