I’m sure that all of you have experienced the sickening sinking feeling that occurs when you are out on the water and that valuable smartphone, the one that contains every bit of information you need to survive, goes gently plop in the water.  It is such a completely helpless and desperate feeling and there is not a single thing that you can do except go and buy another one.

Well, this feeling is way too fresh in my mind because I lost my phone off the docks yesterday.  Years ago, when I lived on a boat, I lost untold numbers of phones into the briny deep, but recently I have been better about protecting my personal connection to the whole world.  In the past it was just a phone that I lost, but yesterday it was my entire identity.  For several hours I was completely unplugged, my important callers could speak only to the fishes.

I’m not sure if it is good or bad, (probably bad) but most of us are completely and totally addicted to the instant communication that our smartphones provide.  I am embarrassed to say that I am so addicted that I found myself jonesing for email, facebook, text messages, weather radar, internet searches, Angry Birds, Fart Piano, FML’s and so much more, within only minutes after the phone went plop.  A little time on the computer or my iPad helped a bit for the withdrawl, but it just wasn’t the same.  What a helpless feeling it is to be unable to instantly search the total compilation of all known human knowledge to determine whether a duckbill platypus or a Peruvian Screeching Llama makes a better pet.  Without my smartphone, I was also quite lost performing my editing duties because I had no convenient way to perform fact checking.  An instant internet search on a smartphone is the best way to find the truth (we all know that everything on the internet has to be true, right???).  It was so bad that I only made it for a couple hours before heading to the AT&T Store and plopping down $500 for a new one.

Unfortunately I had not chosen to purchase the insurance on my old phone because they seem to have a knack for excluding everything that actually happens to me from coverage.  I once dropped one in the Arkansas River and even went to the trouble of retrieving it only to be told that the insurance did not cover phones that had been wet.  If I had simply left the phone in the river and said that it was lost, no problem, it would have been covered.

I even got one of the new waterproof cases for my new personal communicator, but sadly, it seals the phone up so well that I can’t hear it, so it had to go.  I will continue to seek the perfect condom for my phone.

When I was just a kid in the 60’s we were promised that the future would hold great innovation.  We were promised all sorts of fantastic futuristic developments that would enhance our lives.  I have a sinking feeling that the smartphone may be the extent of the innovation that I will see, in my lifetime.  I’m disappointed and angry, I still want my jetpack and flying car.  Popular Mechanics promised me these in the 1960’s and I still don’t have either, do you think I can sue them?