Lost Phone, Part 1: The Toilet Drop

Note: I don't want to analyze why I am posting two separate chapters on a story about my phone, while I have never done the same for any family member. It just happened that way.

I lost my phone this week, in the most inglorious way. 

Dropped in the toilet, while I was about to go pee before getting the kids off to school. They were waiting for me downstairs, bundled up in their snow gear, ready to go.

I had just sat down for a quick tinkle before heading out to the door, when I heard the ominous “plunk.” I immediately knew what had happened. I jumped off the toilet, pants still down, and saw it sunk deep down.

What came out of me was a stranger's voice—the wail of someone grieving the loss of a loved one. Someone totally heartbroken.

“Nooooooo!” I cried, over and over. Staring, shocked, at the toilet.

My husband was in the shower.

“Get it out! Get it out!' he yelled, and his take-charge baritone snapped me to attention.

I plunged my hand in a bowl of lukewarm piss, trying hard not to think about it while I felt my way through the clingy wads of toilet paper and fished it out.

I kept wailing the whole time.

I took it to the bathroom sink and cleaned it under the faucet.

“No more water!”  said my husband. He was now out of the shower, toweled off and stark naked except for his glasses. His expression was stern, on-task.

He barked a series of commands that I clung to like a soldier on the front lines.

“Open the back! Take out your SIM card! Take out the battery! Dry it off!”

He knew what to do! But I froze. I didn't know how to take off the back. We both wrestled with it for a minute or so, but we couldn't figure it out. (He's a Blackberry man, I had a Samsung.)

"I just thought the back didn't open," I said, my voice warbling and pathetic.

A deep sadness washed over me as I saw how it was all going to play out. My husband had to get dressed for work. I had to take the kids to school. I just didn't have the 10 minutes necessary to go down a YouTube hole to find out how to open the back of my phone. 

Life goes on.

My phone was hot to the touch, the screen was black with a sickening green tinge in the corners. The Samsung's death knell.

I left the bathroom, sniffling, and immediately bumped into the little huddle that was my puffy-clothed kids, who had made their way upstairs to see what happened to mom.

They had heard everything. Their faces were grave. It was a rare moment of genuine empathy from them that I shall cherish forever.

I do understand that crying over a phone is not the best example to set for my kids. But it happened that way.

“I think you should get a new phone for your birthday,” the little one said. (My birthday isn't for months.)

Their concern was so sweet. The kids, my husband, everyone coming to my rescue. Even my friends--normally full of cutting sarcasm and pointed humor actually made an earnest effort to comfort me when I posted the news on Facebook. 

"I've done that," said one friend.

"I jumped into a hot tub with my phone!" said another.

It made me realize what was important in life. My family and friends--not a phone! 

Yes, I just lost a bunch of contact information because I never bothered to learn how to sync it to my computer, and I won't immediately be able to keep reading my new book, “The Distracted Mind,” on my reader.

But my photos were backed up. I can get my friends' numbers again. This would be okay. Right?

Me Time

A book blew my mind recently. Books are great! I really should read more of them.

But, life with kids, right? It's a blur of cooking, finding creative ways to avoid cleaning, going to activities, helping with homework, and making it all disappear at the end of the day with wine and bad TV.

Anyway, back to the book. It was about Puritan family life in New England. (I was at my local library waiting for my kids to finish karate class. Selection was limited.)

I was struck by how much work those Puritan mommies did. Not just the running errands kind or the loading-things-into-machines-that-clean-them kind. I mean hard, physical labor. Planting, mending, keeping animals, churning butter, chopping wood, dragging poor quality water out of wells and boiling it to make it safe, cooking vats of stew over fires.

Of course, it's not news. Anyone who didn't sleep through social studies knows this. It's just that when you're a parent, you understand things in ways you never did before.

Like, why your mother drank.

Or how much work those Puritans--or any pioneers, for that matter--would have had to do to keep everyone fed, clothed, and mostly clean.

And I was also struck how many kids they had. As many as they could pop out within a lifetime. And guess what? It wasn't just to be fruitful an multiply. Most families wanted all those kids. No, it's not news. It's what small-scale agrarian societies do – because apparently kids can be helpful.

Between the cooking and the gardening and the scouring and the preserving and the birthing and the candle-making—not to mention the hours and hours of church—where was the Me Time for those moms?

I'd really like to believe that some of them sneaked away somewhere with a teacup-full of cider to have some “time with God.” And hey, maybe some of them did.

But I think their Me Time mostly came from living in small communities, with hardly any stuff, where you could go off and churn some butter if you needed some time alone. You didn't have to constantly supervise your kids. And you could rely on your helpful kids because it was fine to let 9-year-olds babysit six-year-olds, and six-year-olds care for two-year-olds. 

And those two-year-olds? You can bet they knew how to tend a fire properly.

Not my kids. My kids are like cute, disobedient pets. They keep rolling their eyes at my instructions. And when they do manage to do a job I sometimes doubt it's worth the $1.50 I promised them for it. They're lovely children, don't get me wrong. But as householders? Meh.

I know it's my fault. I haven't been a strict enough enforcer. I can barely enforce myself. Most of my efforts go into resenting housework and then writing about it--and even that's pretty limited. 

Finding ways to make kids do work is excruciating for me. Sure, they'll help me make banana bread or clean their room with me, but doing it on their own? It requires lectures on their changing responsibilities, job charts, stickers, keeping track, and all that planning and attention to detail.

I'd rather be churning butter.