NY See: Missed connections

While having drinks with the guys at Therapy, it comes to someone’s attention that Billy has been texting a few times during the night. Men and their gadgets are like women and their shoes and handbags: it’s all about the newest and most stylish accessories.

While some of the others flip out their snazzy phones, I say that I can’t even text on my phone because it’s old. To prove it, I pull it out and show it to the others. Their faces say more than words ever can. They’re surprised that phone still exists (and works).

My phone is ghetto. It’s a few years old and resembles a brick. It doesn’t have a camera, can’t download music, and has a rudimentary game of “crabs” as a form of entertainment.

Jenny from the block ain’t got nothin’ on Steven from the ‘hood.

I say I don’t need it for anything but sending and receiving phone calls. It does what it’s supposed to do. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work when I want it to.

**

After walking around for several hours in the area of Union Square, I’m tired and head off to the hotel. I have no desire to get up from my bed, but decide on getting something to eat since I’m hungry. The phone stays with me when I run out and net a nosh, and while I eat it on top of the bed, it’s within reaching distance.

The hours pass and I lie back on the bed and watch a little TV. My eyes begin to blur, and by the time they regain their focus, it’s giving an episode of Law and Order: SVU.

Did the phone ring? If it did, I must’ve been out of it, I think. I turn around and pick up the phone. No little envelope on top of the display. Nothing. Maybe he was having fun and just forgot.

Either way, since it’s late, I throw on my PJs and slide under the covers.

**

When I meet up with G, he asks whether or not I received his messages. He says he called twice and left messages – once when he left a show and once at the bar – and he also texted me. I didn’t get a single one. There’s no sign in my call history.

As we go around and take in the sights before our show, he mentions I would’ve enjoyed myself last night. He and his friend went to a hole-in-the-wall bar in Greenwich Village, had drinks and listened to drunk college students sing bad karaoke. Sounded like fun, especially when it’s at the cost of seeing others make fools of themselves.

I wish I could’ve been there instead of being zonked out in my hotel room. Yes, I realize that I could’ve called him, but I didn’t. I’m from the school of when someone says they’re going to do something, I let them do it - an assertion of one’s independence.

But, I can’t go back in time. Whether or not messages were sent is irrelevant. Whether it’s my phone, his phone, my provider, his provider, or the fact there’s some force-field around me that fucks up the space-time continuum, I don’t know.

Maybe all of this can be resolved with a new phone.

Anyone care to offer me one?