Nomophobia

Nomophobia - the fear of being without a mobile phone.  


My family lovingly teases me about my iPhone addiction, and when Joe came across this Wikipedia page, he knew it explained me.  I showed it to David, and without explanation he instantly declared it fit me.  I will admit that I have a certain fondness for being attached to both my phone and the Online Repository of All Knowledge that is Google.  So, when things go wrong with my phone (my Precioussssss) I start to lose it a little.

My problem started last Thursday.  Suddenly, I couldn’t hear out of the receiver.  I could still use my headphones (with line-in mic) and speakerphone to make a call, but otherwise I couldn’t use the phone normally.  I did not panic, yet, as a patch had just come through, and it wouldn’t be the first time a patch messed up my phone.  So I waited, and I made an appointment with the Genius Bar for first thing Saturday morning.  

Now, I like the Genius Bar.  I’ve always had really good service from them, and I like that I don’t have to ship my phone off for repairs (as Tam and Joe would with their Motorolas).  Joe has even gotten his iTouch replaced once, even though technically it should have been his fault.  Saturday was no exception.  Unfortunately, my Genius was a bit frazzled, because not only was he dealing with my problem, but a couple of Self-Important kids (couldn’t have been older than 10) came in with a problem with their phone.  He knew them by name, so I get the feeling it wasn’t the first time he’d dealt with them.  They were rude to me and him, so he must have had the patience of Job, to use a biblical reference.  Unfortunately, he did all he could for me but in the end it was a hardware problem, and my phone was 96 days out of warranty.

Now, a decision had to be made.  I could pay $149 then and there, and get a replacement phone of the exact same model, or I could wait until the next available line upgrade on our Verizon plan (Oct) and get a new phone.  We didn’t really have the money now, and while we could have made room in our budgets, it would have messed up other plans.

So I made the very painful decision to keep my poor broken phone, and just deal with it as it is for the next 5 months.  Sometimes, being an adult really sucks.

However, I still have a phone.  No panic attacks for me!