QColumn: A Gay In The Life: SP Phone Home

SP Phone Homo
By Steve Prince
“Let me call you back. My phone’s being weird.”
I hung up. I looked at my phone. She looked battered, poor Ivory—that’s what I named my white Blackberry Pearl. Ivory and I’d been through a lot: traveling around the country, arranging hookups, long conversations with friends. I went to press the top left button to retrieve my call history. Nothing. I pressed it again.
On the screen, my phone flashed something I’d never seen before—writing in a non-English language. I pressed the button again and then Ivory made a noise like a gerbil fart.
Uh oh… that couldn’t be good.
And it turned off. On March 10th at 12:36p.m., my poor little blackberry pearl, Ivory, uttered it’s last signal. I’d have to give her a burial.
“Well,” I said aloud, “shit the bed.” Ugh. Great, two days before my 30th birthday and now I had to deal with getting a new phone. I hate dealing with electronics, and electronics don’t seem to like dealing much with me either.
Okay, I thought to myself, when can I get a new phone? Instinctively, I pulled out my phone to check my calendar. Oh wait—I can’t check my calendar. My phone’s dead. Well, I’d check my computer then. Oh wait—my blackberry never connected with my Mac. Tension began swirling into my stomach and suddenly I realized, I don’t know what I’m doing for the rest of the day!
Yes, I’d become one of those people; I’d implanted my life into that phone. I’d scheduled everything into it. My work commitments, school projects, plans with friends. I wouldn’t know when to wipe my ass if it wasn’t for Ivory.
Along with thoughts of panic, thoughts of hope began bubbling up in my brain. It’s OK, I can get a better phone, I can get an iPhone!
I’ve wanted an iPhone for a while, but I’d been hesitant because in the U.S. to have an iPhone means having AT&T as a carrier. Ugh. It’s a long story, but many years ago AT&T took part of my soul that I don’t know if I’ll ever get back. AT&T is where dreams go to die, but still…
It’s an iPhone. Maybe it’d be my birthday present to myself.
I do love that an iPhone would sync flawlessly to my MacBook laptop. So if my phone crashed, I’d at least have a back up of all my information. And I obviously needed a backup, right?
An hour later, I walked out of the Apple store with an iPhone in hand. Hmmm. Why didn’t this feel as good as I’d expected?
24 hours later…
“So how was your week?”
I placed both phones on my therapist’s coffee table.
He looked at me blankly.
“Doctor,” I said, “I don’t know what the fuck to do.”
I told him the saga of the phone drama.
“So basically,” he said after I’d finished with a sigh and flopped back onto his couch, “one month with an iPhone is going to cost you more than just getting a new phone with your old phone company.”
“Yes,” I said.
“And if you kept the iPhone, you’d have to sign a two-year contract,” he continued.
“Yes,” I said.
He waited for a minute. I looked at the floor and noticed that during my phone monologue, the afternoon sun had quietly retreated from the room and begun to set.
“I’m wondering,” he thought aloud.
Uh oh. Usually when my therapist begins with “I’m wondering,” some type of self reflection occurs.
He continued, “I’m wondering what else you did last night…”
“Umm,” I was thrown by the question. “Well,” I said, recounting my night. “I went to work and that’s where the phone drama occurred. I went to the Apple store after work, then I came home. After that, I met my friend Cody for a drink and then, I hooked up with some guy and he fucked the shit outta me.”

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