Charge!

There are a lot of messages I like. For instance the email from Starbucks that I've earned a free drink, or the note in my mailbox saying I have a package at the apartment offices.

There are also messages I don't like. One of my least favorites is this.

photo from mons-diary.blogspot.com 

Okay, so it's not exactly like that, but you know what I mean.  In my habit of jumping on bandwagons just as a new bandwagon takes off, I bought an iPhone 5 mere weeks before the 5s was released.

I like it. I really do. And I have the cutest blue polka dot cover.

But the battery lives as long as your average fruit fly. And if I play Pandora, its cut even shorter. Like a fruit fly with a bad nicotine habit.

Which makes me grateful for car chargers. While I would like to be the kind of organized that always has a pen in her purse, a plan for dinner, and fully charged electronics, I'm just not. Even with a car charger my phone does die on occasion and its misery. I mean, I just know that the pivotal call/text/email/facebook message/tweet/retweet that never comes while my phone is on will soar through cyberspace and hit the brick wall of my dead phone leading to nebulous but serious consequences.*

Okay, yes, I do have control issues.When I think back to the pre-cell days when you stood tethered by a cord to the kitchen phone counting twenty-two rings before you decided the other party must not have an answering machine, it's all hazy like a bad, low-tech dream. Less stressful, but still.(Shiver.)

While walking around with a dead phone is probably a good exercise in letting go, its a lesson I don't have to learn, thanks to my lovely blue car charger. And for that I'm grateful.

Thank you, God, for whoever put the cigarette lighter in cars that now serves to charge things. Thank you for portable technology, for my phone and its cute blue cover, for all the crazy apps it lets me use. Thank you for friends who send me texts, tweets, emails, and messages elevating my phone from an electronic paperweight to a means of connecting. All my love.

*Note: I have no qualms whatsoever when my work blackberry dies. In fact, I gloat a bit over its still form.