By Jack Godbey

Columnist

It seems that everyone has a cell phone. I even saw a panhandler standing in front of the grocery store yesterday with a cardboard sign in one hand pleading for money while they played on their cell phone with the other hand.

I’ll admit that I’ve come to rely on my phone more than I used too. Not so much for actual phone calls but occasionally I’ll snap a picture or two of something that caught my attention. You know, like when that loudmouth coworker comes out of the bathroom with toilet paper stuck to their shoe. Oh yes, I’m documenting that moment for sure.

I bought my first cell phone in 1998. I felt like I was Don Johnson from Miami Vice. Phones in those days came with about a hundred minutes of use per month so I couldn’t actually use the phone, but man did I feel big carrying it around in my pocket.  When I did call, I had to talk so fast I sounded like one of those car dealership commercials when they try to slip in the real details in the last five seconds of the advertisement.

A friend said the other day that they longed for the old days before cell phones when they had peace and quiet. I have a solution to that. It’s called the off button. No one is forcing them to watch funny cat videos for hours at a time. While I use my phone for everything from checking the weather report to sports scores to reading the local news, all I have to do is turn it off and it all goes away.

However, I believe my phone is out to get me. I know you’re thinking that I’m just paranoid. Yea, that’s what I thought too—at first. Now, I’m convinced. It all started in an attempt to be funny, and I put a pair of underwear on my head and chased my dog around the house. My wife took a picture of my moment of insanity for future use in case she had to institutionalize me someday and that was that. Or so I thought. Several weeks later, while my phone was stored in my pocket, it somehow decided to try to destroy me and sent that same embarrassing picture to a business contact. How it did that from my pocket, I have no idea. I didn’t even try to explain it. At that point, all I can do is ignore it with everything I have and hope she does the same.

A few days later, I got a package in the mail. That’s not unusual because I order so much nonsense from Amazon, the delivery guy is in our Christmas pictures. However, when my wife opened the box, it was a plaque that said, “I love you Betty”. You guessed it, that’s not my wife’s name. I sounded like Porky Pig as I stuttered out an explanation. Somehow, I’m still alive.

I was determined to clear my good name and after some detective work that would make Dog the Bounty Hunter jealous, I tracked down that the purchase came from eBay. I confirmed that my phone was trying to set me up.  Somehow, from the comfort of my back pocket, my phone opened the eBay app, selected the item, paid for it, and then sat back and laughed at me.

I don’t know what I did to my phone to make it try to destroy me. However, two can play that game. Maybe, I’ll take the cover off it and throw it in the bathtub and then send pictures of it to every cell phone in my contacts list. I suppose I could also just hit that off button.  Yep, that’s a plan.