A few weeks ago when I was helping my mother move out of her apartment in Brighton to her new place in Albion, I lost the charger to my cell phone. It is an “outdated” model so finding a replacement charger turned out to be a bit of a challenge. What wound up happening was that I went without a cell phone for about the last three weeks.

            I am old enough to remember when not everybody had a cell phone, of course that was not all that long ago. For the most part, I have not kept up with the latest models of phone. The bells and whistles do not really mean that much to me and so I am not willing to spend a lot of money to try to keep up with the latest technology. That means that most teenagers have a better phone than I do, including my own.

            I did own a Blackberry for a short time-my mother always called it a “Blueberry”-but it was distracting because I checked it every time it indicated I had a new email message, which tripled the mount of times I looked at my phone. It broke and I did not get another Blackberry.

            I am also not a text message junkie like many of my friends and co-workers. I still do not understand why some people can have entire conversations via text messages when they could just use the phone function and call the person. I have co-workers that text all through lunch and some that text throughout the workday even though it is against company policy. My thumbs are just not built for all that text messaging.

            Being without a cell phone has been a great experience. It reminds me of the days when I could go to the store and be forced to remember what I was sent there to get. My leg still tingles with phantom cell phone vibrations, but I am not constantly checking to see if somebody is calling. I am also able to carry on complete conversations with people instead of stopping somebody mid-sentence to look at my cell and see if I “need” to take a particular phone call.

            Some of my friends complained that they could not get in touch with me and that my voice mail was full. I told them they could call me at home, only to find out that many of my friends do not even know my home phone number. Some were shocked that I could function without a cell phone.

            The time when it really seemed to make a big difference was when I went golfing.  Years ago I used to turn my cell off when I went golfing because I figured that the purpose of golf was to provide a temporary getaway from the daily grind. The last two games of golf I played were by far the most relaxing I had played in a long time and I took notice how my golf companions were still tied to their cell phones.

            Until recently I was convinced that my cell phone was a necessity. I have broken down and ordered a new phone on the internet but in some ways I am going to miss not having a cell, or maybe I just miss the days when nobody had them.