A little over 2 weeks ago my mobile phone was repossessed, or should I say forcefully reclaimed, by the “original owners” .
You know the guys that let you have your own property just for long enough to enjoy it till you get careless and then they take it from you, because let’s face it, everything you buy isn’t really for you alone.
You might think it is, until the original owners come for it like at checkpoints when Nigerian police demand the money they gave you to keep and then…oh forget it, who am I kidding my phone got stolen and it hurt, no I didn’t shed any tears and that’s not why you’re here, but before you allow your imagination get the better of you, let me remind you a grown man crying is unappealing *shrugs*
Anyway, now we’re past the waterworks, (unless you’d rather just be salty, in which case, NaH) let me tell you what the two weeks have been like, without it.
No Escape
For two weeks I was painfully denied the luxury of escape, into my own Digital World and space, the beauty of expressing the tacit “F*** Off!” when I plug in the headphones to preserve my sanity by the deafness to small talk (No I didn’t lose the headphones too na, haba, but the headphones lost a brother and a friend *sob* whence shall we be plugged and unplugged, they wailed)
But it was in this moment, I found my voice. No, really, I’d lost it the week before, don’t ask how that’s not for this post,focus on the important things.
I found my voice, and the secret to speaking up about my disinterest in the many unsolicited attempts to verbally engage me.
Ok, maybe it was really just one or two, didn’t count, but who eats Jollof without spice?
Don’t judge me, exaggerations are merely condiments in the story pot.
The moral is I learnt to speak up against the real common enemy here, the incessant small talker, as opposed to retreating into the digital safe space.
Not a habit I picked up permanently, unfortunately, condition just made this crayfish bend, and almost break his back.
Brainfreeze, Brainsqueeze
How many phone numbers do you have memorized?
Probably just the important ones like real daddy/mummy, sister(s) and/or brother(s), bae(s)* / sidechick(s)*, dealer/pharmacist, debtor/creditor, sugar daddy/mummy, pastor etc.
Yes I pluralized ‘bae’ because there exists amongst us the expert love jugglers, whose emotional multitasking skill set can only be compared to the TV circus juggler acts, and even they aren’t as good. So while some of us are still praying for the one we can claim we’ve been “talking to” , these gods amongst us are conveniently faithful to 5 without a single worry in the World
*sigh* How did we get here?
The two weeks taught me a valuable skill of knowing numbers by sight, The End.
Sike
Receiving phone calls was like rolling the dice, I was forced to learn the numbers of the people I didn’t want to talk to, the hard way, by unwittingly answering their phone calls, and no they’re not creditors. *hiss*
So I learnt numbers, (well mostly the last four digits, but hey I was well on my way to becoming ‘Mike Ross’, for those that watch the TV show, ‘Suits’ )but more than that I also had to remember the time of day every number called me for when I needed to call them back.
My brain was my phoneboook, call log and call filter all at once, talk about multitasking, yay brain power, humans 1- Technology 0 *fist bump*
Now I know what’s on your mind, you’re wondering why I didn’t just save these numbers, right?
Bruno Mars would be proud
Laziness. The sum of it all, reason I didn’t save anything, sheer laziness.
I hadn’t used a non-qwerty keyboard wielding mobile device in so long using one now felt like such a chore.
At this point all I wanted was to just be able to call and receive, anything more was torture, on that device.
My smartphone has made me lazy. A laziness I’ve come to accept and embrace. I mean, a phone that doesn’t ask you if you’d like to save a number that isn’t on your device? How did we ever survive without them?
Don’t answer that.
The Sky is Red
Ok ok ok, it’s not, but even if it was I probably wouldn’t have known given the number of times I’m looking down at my phone screen completely unaware of what’s going on around me.
Take last week in traffic for instance, the Lagos taskforce people came out to raid the traffic hawkers and it was quite entertaining.
Then there was the coca-cola truck that made a sharp turn into the New Market road at Oniru and about 10 crates thought this was their moment to jump off the truck and escape the cycle, narrowly missing an okada rider and his passenger.
PS:No bottle made it in one piece.
So many other incidents I’d love to share but this is a short post so I won’t.
I probably wouldn’t have seen all these things happen if I had my phone at the time seeing as there’s always one notification or the other, email I have to answer to, IM I have to respond to, something I absolutely must share on twitter or telegram where I’m part of a room, a “Hidden Village” of sorts.
Did I miss my phone? Not really.
Did I enjoy life without it? Absolutely!
Why didn’t I stay longer then? Nice try, but you cannot disprove my claim.
I thoroughly missed not having one and I didn’t know how much I did until it was gone.
Of course I have one now (what do you think I typed this with?)
Jokes, no way I’m typing all of this with a smartphone, I’m not that hooked.
What has the mobile monster stolen from you?
