Help! I have been cast adrift

My cell phone has given up the ghost.

I decided to catch a mid-afternoon nap today. When I set the phone upon the bookcase next to the bed, it was working fine, bright and chipper, and when I woke up it had slipped away into the void.

I feel disconnected; cast adrift. My cell is my life-line to the rest of the world, my answering machine, my alarm clock, my watch, my address book, my toy for aimlessly passing the minutes when I am waiting for a bus to arrive.

It is also the only telephone I have. Rachael has her cell phone, of course, but she is off, earning money, and we don't have a home phone (what the technophiles have convinced us to call a land-line).

I planned to make a hotel reservation tonight. That will have to wait. I planned to call my daughter in Ohio. That will have to wait. I planned to call for pizza delivery, too, and now I will have to settle for a toasted cheese sandwich.

Most of all, I will have to wait until tomorrow to hurry to the phone store and arm wrestle some eager young clerk into submission, so that I can get a replacement without spending my grandson's college fund. Unless, of course, the current model comes back to life.

Quick; what's the acronym for electronics cardiopulmonary resuscitation?

May I speak with the driver of the car?

If you have my telephone number, and it seems that far too many people do, please don't call me mornings, between 8:30 and 9:30 PDT. That hour is the most likely time for me to be behind of the wheel of our SUV, and I won't be able to answer.

Starting July 1, it will be illegal, in the state of Washington, to talk on a hand-held cell phone while driving, unless you use a headset or some other hands-free device. I was discussing the new law yesterday with an acquaintance – he owns a town-car service and pretty much lives or dies through his cell phone – and he told me he had read a recent article discussing the feasibility of implanting a cell phone system within a person’s ear and throat. That scares me; I am attached to my cell phone, but I'm not certain that I want to be, well, attached.

That's an old-fashioned attitude, I suppose, but I can be an old-fashioned sort. I think a telephone should be black. Mine is. I also think that a telephone should ring when it wants you attention, not play a Brahms' concerto or an R. Kelly rap. I'm not too keen on text messaging, either, or taking snapshots with my phone.

And that sounds like Andy Rooney, doesn’t it; off on one of his famous Sixty Minutes rants about technology. Not what I intended when I started this. I want to go on record as saying I love my cell phone, wouldn’t be without it, and haven’t had a land-line at home in almost four years, so I suppose I’m going to have to purchase a blue-tooth headset. Never can tell who’s going to call in the morning.

Of course, if gasoline prices continue to climb, it won't matter when you call or how I answer. I may be behind the wheel, but I won't be able to afford to even start the engine, let alone go out on the highways.