On Friday, March 28th I had a wicked case of
gripe (the cold). I stayed home from the
parade to fight tuberculosis (didn’t want to send mixed messages) and settled
in for a day in bed. Boredom soon set in
and I texted my parents the following message: Call your sick daughter.
And with that ominous message sent, the cell service in the
valley promptly cut out…for five long, long days.
By day two I figured that my parents might be mildly
concerned, and so I began to ask around town, did anyone know why the service
was down? Did anyone know when it was coming back? Could it be found in any
corner of this earth? Rumor and hearsay
soon brought the following information forward: The service was out because
there was a storm that knocked it out; no one knew when it was coming back (the
general sentiment was, “Hopefully soon”) and apparently no one is in charge of
communication; and there was tell of pockets of service higher up the mountain.
So Sunday, with mucus pouring out of my nose as if a dam had
been breached and a hacking cough warning all life within a seven mile radius
that I was exerting physical energy, I began to climb. After about twenty-five minutes I came across
a fallen tree, I paused there, setting down my waterbottle to catch my
breath. I looked upward, dreading the
continuing trek. With a resigned sigh, I
looked down towards my belongings and gasped in shock—there on the backlit
screen were three bars. SERVICE! HUMAN
COMMUNICATION WAS WITHIN MY GRASP!
I wrote a quick message to my parents, telling them I was
fine, there was just no service, but they could call now if they wanted, only
to discover that I was out of saldo, aka credit. Thank goodness for RPM, aka free minutes
between volunteers. Several calls later
I found someone with credit on their phone and my parents were informed that I
had not succumbed to an undisclosed plague.
How worried were they? Well,
there were 17 unheard voicemails in my inbox, so I figured they were mildly
concerned.
For the rest of Cellpocalypse I hiked up to my spot
daily. It turns out I’m mildly dependent
on my cell phone. I really like to talk
to people in English and y new reality of inconveniently distant cell service
forced me to reconsider my place in the world.
I, along with the rest of the town, began to make contingency plans for
the rest of time. Would the service ever
return? Were we to be banished to the
1950s? If the service was gone, what was
next? Electricity, running water,
civilization? The madness set in.
But then, one night as I sat eating my dinner, I heard a
sound. It was so familiar, and I felt my
heart race as my mind struggled to place it.
Yes, there had once been a time, so long ago, when I had heard ringing
tones to indicate that someone wished to communicate me. I instinctively reached down to my pocket,
gripped the small box located there, and it all came rushing back to me—my cell
phone was ringing. Another volunteer who
had been affected by the service kidnapping was calling me. Word on the street, now that people had the
means to pass along information, was that the storm was not to blame for all
that had passed. Some little shit had
stolen a piece of the antenna. My joy at
being in communication again lent me the power to forgive, and to move on. There were important things to discuss—like
TV shows watched, socios who had blown us off, and weird foods we had eaten.
Besos!
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