Another Reminder About Attachment

I had another object lesson in attachment recently. About 6 weeks ago I treated myself to the high tech bauble that is the Blackberry Pearl. It’s sleek, gets email and phone calls, plays mp3’s, and is a pda attached. And I quickly filled it up with the myriad mundane yet utterly necessary details of my life, including my exercise routines, my datebook, my phonebook and the all important keeping track of the money I squander. After all, the Pearl is what is euphemistically known as a smart phone. It is deluxe. It is not, however, immersible, let alone submersible.

I found this out the hard way when after excreting some of the coffee I ingested Sunday morning, I stood up to hear the tell-tale plop of something of substance falling out of the pocket into the toilet. The red LED blinked at me most ominously as I attempted to rapidly dry the Pearl. No joy. It no longer functioned and the red LED blinked its last in what I am now certain was Morse code for I’m drowning. Sigh…I had an appointment near the land of the mall and set out for it. After the appointment, I ventured to the mall, with my previously functioning Pearl and my old cell phone. Figuring I needed something of a cell phone ilk, with the weather and so forth. Got the old phone up and running, became well acquainted the fine fine folk at Asurion, the cell phone insurers, who are replacing the Crackberry even as we speak.

Then as news of the flooding from the storm, and the tragedy at VA TECH came up, I’m once again reminded of the fragility of the really important things in life, not just the baubles.