James Complains About The Demise Of His Smart Phone And The Relative Lack Of Inconvenience This Has Caused

It seems like only a few weeks ago that I was ‘celebrating’ the fact that I had written my very first blog post via the medium of phone and extoling the wonders of the modern world.

Admittedly it seems like only a few weeks because it is, in fact, only a few weeks since I wrote that post.

It would be fair to suggest that I only wrote that particular post because I was participating in NaBloPoMo, one of the lesser November challenges in which I needed to write a blog post everyday throughout the month of November. I succeeded, but only because I was prepared to plumb the depths of mediocrity and writing a post from my mobile phone about writing a post from my mobile phone could be considered one of the highlights.

Next November I’m going back to moustache growing and novel writing. Proper November challenges.

Anyway my phone may have been a touch aggrieved by the nature of my post. I may have been a tad insincere about the virtues of the noble smart phone. I’m in no way suggesting that my phone is capable of independent thought or feelings but, clearly hurt by my lack of appreciation, it fell into decline and on the Wednesday evening following that particular blog post, it was taken ill.

I was sitting at the very desk that I am sitting at now when I noticed the appearance of the smoke. I was a little perturbed, for as the saying goes, ‘there’s no smoke without fire’, and fire didn’t seem to me like it would be a good thing to have in my guest-room/office.

I searched for the source and noticed that the smoke was coming from the charging port of my phone. I’ve had experience of malfunctioning charging ports before as you’ll discover if you read this brilliant post that I wrote back in August.

Sensing that it would be a good idea to unplug the phone from the charger, I leapt into action. In scenes reminiscent of Die Hard 4.0, I separated the wire from the electronic device. No-one will ever make a film depicting that moment but truthfully no-one should ever have made Die Hard 4.0. The smoking abated. The charging lead was a little charred, but the phone seemed ok. Not fully charged but still in working order.

It lasted most of the following Thursday. I did accidently switch the ‘torch’ function on at one point, which may have drained the residual battery power more quickly than was strictly necessary, although any amoebic life forms in my pocket would have had much better lighting that they are used to. Sadly by late Thursday evening the battery stopped and my phone ceased to be functional. I have been without the device ever since.

Which is now several weeks.

I sent it off to be fixed. This is not a quick process. My phone provider makes the outlandish claim that the phone will be returned within four working days but this ignores the fact that I had to wait several days for them to send me the packaging in which to return to the phone to them, several more days  for them to receive said package and establish that they needed to charge me for the repair (because apparently spontaneous combustion is not covered by the warranty). Two more days then passed because they attempted to contact me to alert me of the costs via the very device they were tasked with fixing, a fact I only realised when checking my voicemail through my landline. Alongside all these other delays we can include weekends, which rightly do not count as ‘working days’ but which nonetheless have happened multiple times since this particular episode began.

But here’s the thing.

I haven’t missed having my phone at all.

I’ve never been the kind of mobile media junkie that seems to pervade the modern world but I thought I’d miss it a bit.

But I haven’t.

It turns out that if I need to communicate with the world at large, there are a myriad of other ways that don’t involve carrying a small computer around in my pocket.

Indeed not having my phone has been liberating if anything.

I haven’t lost out as far as I can tell. Since my phone abandoned me, I have applied for, interviewed for and accepted a new job. If I don’t miss my phone when I’m going through that process then I wonder whether I really need it at all.

The only discernible way in which I’ve missed having my phone is through the fact that I tend to use it as my main method for telling the time.

So essentially I’ve been without a pocket watch for the past few weeks.

Which causes me to question whether I really need to be paying a monthly fee for a timepiece. If I cancelled my contract and just put the money I pay for my phone into a savings account, then I could probably afford a really nice watch in a few years time. I could definitely afford a reasonably nice one for what I have paid to have the thing fixed.

Sadly though, I am stuck with my current contract for the next seventeen billion years. So it’s all just speculation.

My phone may possibly return to me before Christmas.

In the meantime I’m paying for a service that I’m not currently receiving and perhaps I should be irritated that I’m not receiving it.

But as it turns out, I honestly don’t really care.