Please press 0 for frustration

A couple of days ago, I was supposed to meet a friend to pick some stuff up at the train station early in the morning on my way to work. When I reached the station, I realised that she would be alighting at the bus stop from where I would be taking the bus to work. So I sent her an sms to ask her to meet me at the bus stop instead.

I crossed the overhead bridge from the station, and waited at the bus stop. And waited. And waited. And it was 8 am and I was afraid I'd be late for work. So I sent her another message. I immediately got a call from her number. Her mother was on the line! My friend had actually left her phone at home, and the poor thing had been waiting for me at the station! So I dashed up the overhead bridge again, picked up the stuff, and dashed back again, in heels that are only meant for only one overhead bridge trip per day.

And my heart went out to my friend. I can only imagine how her day would have passed without her phone. We have become so helplessly dependent on our mobile phones, that it's almost become a part of us. And it's a horrid nagging feeling to not have our mobile with us even for a few hours.

I remembered the last time I had forgotten my mobile phone at home.

I was uneasy the entire day at work. I cancelled my dinner plans as I wanted to get my hands on my phone asap. It's quite annoying how desperate we are to stay connected, and how uneasy something as trivial as leaving our mobile phone at home can make us. It's amazing because I don't even use my phone much. I am not the compulsive type who looks at her phone every three seconds. But I just need that sense of security that the phone is somewhere around where I can reach it.

The entire day I kept freaking out at regular intervals. I kept imagining -- someone would be calling me now, and getting frustrated with me. Someone would have left seventeeen pissed-off voice messages. Someone would have sent sms after sms, and cursed me for not replying. What if one of my authors called?? (My authors, for some weird reason, like to bheja-fry me by calling my mobile.)

The day seemed to stretch on and on. And I got more and more worked up.

Visions of the whole world trying to contact me crossed my freaked out eyes.

What if my parents call? My folks have a tendency of freaking out when I don't pick up the phone. My Dad would first leave a voice message that only says "This is Dad." and then another one to tell me that he's left the first voice message. And then another one to say there are two messages for me. And then he would send me an email to tell me about the voice messages. And then he would leave another voice message to tell me that he has emailed me about the voice messages. And this cycle would continue till I call him back.

So when I reached home, I tore through the house to my room, found the phone on the bedside table, and almost threw myself at it in my excitement to see who had called and who had left messages.

And there it was.

The blank screen, staring at me. No missed calls. No sms messages. Nothing. Nothing at all.

I shook it. I stared at it. I even rebooted it. Twice. Yet, nothing. The screen was as blank as my mind at that point in time.

Sigh.

Sometimes all it takes to put us in our place is a non-living thing.