by Jan Michael Yip

Created on: September 12, 2009

Me Sans My Treo

It's been more than four months since my trusty Treo 600 bit the dust. Funny how I went through the 5 Stages of Grief over something that's not even alive. After the charger fried the unit's motherboard (says several "technicians"), I tried to resuscitate it by using another charger. Even as I felt the back of the phone/pda heat up while it's plugged in, I kept on telling myself that it's probably just a busted charger or something minor... nothing a little tinkering won't solve. The Denial stage was short lived as I found myself hurling invectives at the previously treasured Treo. Anger of course turned into a haggling exercise as I bargained with the inanimate object, promising to never ever charge it without a voltage regulator and to get it a new screen protector. As you might have imagined, that didn't do me any good. There I was, a man deprived of the comfort and convenience that he previously took for granted. Depression started with "What in the world am I going to do now? No more instant info whether be it academic, social or trivial. Maybe I should just forget about everything. That's it, I'm done for." Accepting the fact that life goes on without the gadget wasn't a pleasant experience as I had to get a dictionary and several books to function as information banks, a job the Treo carried out so beautifully before its untimely demise.

Hohum.

C'est la Vie.

Not having a mobile phone isn't such a big deal, it's the PDA that I'm so bent out of shape about. I'm a bit harder to reach these days but at the risk of sounding full of myself, I always believe that if you're important enough, people will look for ways to get in touch with you. To be sure, I've missed sms messages here and there, some important and some not so important.

Life became a bit less hectic. The calm that not having a beeping thingamajig on me had a very soothing effect. It took some time before people I know realized that I REALLY didn't have a mobile phone and that I wasn't just "faking" it. In a country where almost everyone from all walks of life has a mobile phone, friends and acquaintances started to accuse me of being too stingy to get a cheap phone.

Truth is, I love the peace and quiet.

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