If a cell phone rings and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

Monday wasn’t my day.
While driving Thing 2 and the neighbor girl to morning choir, I slid into a curb while making a left turn. Seriously. The curb stopped me. Thank god it wasn’t a car. I was like, Weeeeeeeee!! That was fun!! as if I meant to do it. Pretty sure the neighbor girl was terrified anyway and I’ve lost my 7 a.m. carpool.
Then after I dropped them at school and was trying to brake at the stop sign at the bottom of the hill (trying and bottom being the 2 operative words in that sentence), I didn’t.
Winter driving in Minnesota.
Yaaay.

So I was running late to my appointment with Edward Scissorhands, my dermatologist, and about 15 minutes from home realized I’d forgotten my phone.
I might have stopped breathing for several minutes.
Seriously. I panicked.
I looked all around the passenger seat, in my purse, in the console (where I discovered a few Sweedish Fish, so that was a happy surprise) and by my feet.  All while driving down the freeway (do not tell the other carpool mother that, btw).  Relax, traffic had come to a dead stop (or a 5 mph crawl) because a few flurries of snow were drifting about.
I considered turning around and ditching my appointment, I really did.
Because I felt like I’d left my hand at home. Or at least my thumb.
I just knew the mere fact that I didn’t have a way to call for help if I needed it was jinxing me into a certain accident.
I became a very defensive driver. Seriously. I don’t think I’ve driven that cautiously since I was 17.
A million things flashed through my mind.

What if one of the Things gets sick and calls me from the nurse’s office? (Which again, I knew I’d jinxed into reality just by leaving my phone at home).
What if one of the Things needs me to bring something they left at home up to their school? (That one actually made me chuckle with delight).
What if Husband tries to call or text and didn’t get a response? Won’t he be so worried?
And, most importantly, How am I going to check facebook or twitter or my gmail for the next few hours?

When I finally made it to the doctor’s office I asked the receptionist to use her archaic desk phone (seriously, it had a cord) so I could call Husband to tell him of this catastrophic event and also to let him know to keep his cell near for the imminent call from the nurse at the middle school.  I originally thought to just find a pay phone in the medical building but then I remembered it wasn’t 1983.
Since I was running 15 minutes late (thanks to the sucky drivers) my punishment was that I had to wait over an hour for Scissorhands to make his appearance.
And I couldn’t even call anyone to bitch about it.
Or to get sympathy about getting yet another freckle carved out (much to ES’s enjoyment, I’m quite certain).
I grabbed for my phone no fewer than 3 or 7 times to take photos of things throughout the rest of my day – my lunch (like any good blogger always does), a few Christmas gift ideas, my cute scarf…you know, the usual.
On the way home I couldn’t imagine how many missed calls I’d have waiting for me when I got home.
I was sure Husband was going nuts not having me call or text him every hour letting him know all the vitally important things I was up to.

When I got home, Thing 1 had just gotten home herself and when I walked in she said, you know you left your phone at home?

I know! It’s made me crazy all day!! I bet I have a million missed calls and texts! Watch this… (and then I made a big show of pushing the home button on my phone).

Seems she was the only one who’d called…2 minutes earlier when she walked in the door and wondered where I was.
Everyone else must’ve forgotten their phones, too.

You’d think the whole experience would have been liberating.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger (which is a load of crap, btw).

No way, Jose´.
My phone is my lifeline.
My drug of choice (don’t tell the Chardonnay). 

Think about it.
What in sweet baby Jesus did we do before cell phones?
I didn’t own a cell phone until I was in my 30’s.  I know, you are dying for me, right?
Didn’t have one when Thing 1 was a baby and I was running back and forth to the NICU every day for 6 weeks.
Didn’t have one when she was older and we left her with a babysitter (we had to write down the phone # of the restaurant or movie theater. On paper).
Didn’t have one when we moved from Arizona to Indiana and I had to learn to drive in blizzards with a baby and I certainly didn’t have one to check the status updates of Baio when I was a teenager (curses).

Seriously.
How did we survive?

Which leads me to my next post – Things I cannot believe I ever survived without.

Check back tomorrow.
Ryan Seacrest may or may not be #1 on the list.