Old School Address Book

This week started off badly. On Monday morning Doug missed the bus so I got to work an hour late and as I was getting out of the car to go into the building I realized I had forgotten my cell phone on the desk at home. GASP! This day was not starting out well. To add to that my store is going through a major renovation and the contractors are now working in my area of the store ripping and tearing.

Missed bus + no cell phone + renovations and mess = major eye twitch!

The entire day I was constantly wanting to check a cell phone that wasn’t there. Has this ever happened to you? I hate it. I hate that a cell phone is a drug for me. Truly. I want to drop kick it over a cliff. But I can’t. I don’t have a house phone anymore.

Ok, I said to myself so no one will bother me that’s all. No texts, no updates, no notifications and no phone calls equals peace and quiet and high productivity for the day right?

Yeah right. What I came to realize was I actually use that cell phone for more than just Facebook.

I use it as a watch. I use it as a calculator. I also use it to call my son after school to see how his day went. But hey, I can use the store phone to call him right? Wrong. I don’t even know his freakin’ phone number! I just usually push the button on my cell phone for the last time I called him and it dials it for me. Ugh.

So I called my husband from the store phone and sheepishly asked for Doug’s phone number. I felt like such a schmuck.

This is where old ways and new ways collide for me. They don’t print actual phone books anymore. I couldn’t have simply looked Doug’s phone number up in a printed phone book because there is no such thing now and his number is not a land-line.

Twenty years ago I knew everyone’s phone numbers by heart. I had to physically dial them for one thing. No pushing a button and it dials it for you. Everyone had a land line so the phone numbers all started with the same three digits and if you didn’t know the number you looked it up in a phone book that had three counties worth of numbers in it. People also kept a personal, hand written address/phone book in their desk or purse as well.

We count on our cell phones too much. My husband Scott shattered his phone (I really need to pay for the extra insurance next time if you know what I mean) and instead of taking it to a professional to have the glass replaced he decided to take a stab at replacing it himself. So with a replacement glass in hand and a handy dandy You-Tube video in front of him he gave it a go. Unfortunately it was much harder than he anticipated and after 30 minutes of tiny glass shards flying and burning his hand with the hair dryer he gave up. What was really unfortunate was he just threw the phone out. To add to that he didn’t have a clue what his user name and password were to retrieve his contacts in Google. He had hundreds of contacts in his old phone that are now permanently lost. Not to mention the photos.

Photos is another post in the future but the lesson for all of us here is that having a written back-up somewhere is not a bad thing. Yes it is old school but I plan on keeping a little address book in my purse from now on just in case. It won’t be all of the numbers I have in my phone, just the most important numbers like family numbers, school, the vet, stuff like that.

Look at this super cool Norman Rockwell inspired address book. I think I am going to see if Santa will leave it in my stocking this year. -MM