Electronic Suicide

My life sometimes feels like an endless checklist, a powerful trajectory from must do to must do with no breath in between.  My partner-boss jokes that I come to work to rest, and it used to be true.  But now, really, there is no rest anywhere.  Sometimes, I have to remind myself that my Sister Suffragettes fought for my right to be this busy.  Sigh.  Thanks, sistah.  As Mae West once said,  “When given a choice of evils, I usually choose the one I haven’t tried yet.”  I’m ready to try being a kept woman.

Rewind to Saturday before last.  I wake up early, before the kids have staked out their own claims to my taxi service, and go forth with day planner in hand, optimistically filled out with a list of seven objectives that couldn’t be accomplished during the workweek. Packages to be mailed, craft items to be purchased, sexy red shoes to be found for the Addy’s, cat litter to buy, birthday presents to find, clothes to go to Goodwill… After completing the first two items on the list, I skip items three and four, cursing the fact that neither !@#?!!@ store opens til 10 a.m., which won’t allow me enough time to get to my BodyPump class at Women’s World at 10:30 a.m., item seven. I load the cat litter into the back of my ridiculously large but necessary Suburban, and head out for Toys R Us, to cross item six off the list.  In backing up I hear and feel a disturbing sound/sensation, something like cracking plastic, but, looking in the rearview mirror, I see nothing.

Content that I apparently have not run over a shopper in pursuit of my “to do” list, I whip around the corner to Toys R Us, passing on the momentary temptation to park in the “Soon to be Moms-only” spaces.  Rather disturbingly, I allow that I have accomplished enough this morning to permit myself a brief visit to the Toys R Us bathroom to answer the Call of Nature, which I have chosen to ignore to this point.  At that moment, savoring my successes, I reach for my Blackberry, because it would be a shame to answer the Call without multi-tasking.  At that moment, groping the front pocket of my Vera Bradley lime green purse with no Blackberry to be had, I realize what the sick sound/sensation was that I experienced back in front of the pet store.

I weigh the possibility of returning to the scene of the crime immediately, but concluded that it would be more efficient to purchase my daughter’s birthday presents first (after all, they may run out of pink Nintendo DS’s.)  I sprint from the check out line, where I jingle my keys while the cashier asks for my telephone number, to the counter where one picks up electronic toys likely to be stolen if not protected.  I wait while the electronics manager goes to retrieve the coveted DS, shifting from foot to foot, envisioning the further damage my Blackberry may be suffering.

Finally, I run to the car and drive to the pet store parking lot, my eyes focusing on a rectangular black object between the wheels of the mini-van that took my Suburban’s place in the parking lot.  I dash out from my giant white chariot, door flung optimistically open, and pick up the crushed plastic item, which is missing a row of keys and has painful looking skid marks across the plastic face.  With sinking heart that at that moment acknowledges the insanity of trying to do this much, I push the button on the side of the object that allows one to automatically call a frequented number. Miraculously, the machine responds, “Say a command.”  Feeling both vindicated and empowered, I say, “Call Ron Sachs.”  “Which number?” the battered machine asks.  “Home,” I answer.  “Calling,” it assures me. When Ron answers, I confess my transgression like the old Catholic schoolgirl that I am.  After urging me to go to the Sprint store and purchase a replacement, he suggests a possibility that is both stunning and plausible.  His theory:  My Blackberry has attempted suicide, flinging itself beneath the wheels of my sleeping Suburban.   Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.