wonderment

I am becoming very forgetful these days.

I walked out of the house without my handphone this morning and I only realised it after breakfast and we were travelling to work.

I decided against going back to get it because 1) its was 845 and my dad had to go back to fetch the mother and sis to go meet the designer at the new house at 930 2) it’s a Saturday and I don’t really get calls today 3) what a glooooooorrrrrrrrious day without the proverbial electronic leash!!

Or so I thought.

The day went pretty well. Didn’t suffer any withdrawal symptoms except when a friend MSNed me while I was away in the class. He left by the time we stopped for a break and I instinctively groped around my bag to reply via SMS. Then I remembered …

But that was nothing compared to what would happen later.

After class I was to wait for the folkies at City Hall as they finished church. Now, its irritating because it seems that there are fewer and fewer public phones around and for every 4 phones that require a phonecard, there’s only 1 that uses coins!!

Who carries phonecards around now when you have handphones? It was certainly something you don’t do everyday - searching high and low for a coin phone, and making sure you have enough coins.
But not yet, that wasn’t the most frazzling issue.

So I manage to contact my mom after calling her like a million times (I played smart, if she didn’t pick up by the 4th ring, I quickly hung up to prevent the call from going into voicemail and the sneaky phone to swallow my 10 cents). We arranged to meet at the taxistand at Funan in 10 minutes. I walked around a bit until it was nearly 10 minutes and I went to the taxi stand to wait.

And I waited …

And waited …

And waited …

Nearly half an hour later, I was getting mighty pissed - no dinner and all you know! I thought they’d gone off to IKEA without me!! I thought about going to find a phone to call them to check where they were but I couldn’t leave because 1) what if they came while I went away? 2) the nearest phone was 2 streets away.

So I carried on waiting.

Thankfully, they appeared not long after. Seems they were caught in a humongous jam at Dhoby Ghaut.

I was very, very angry. Angry that I survived well without the phone all day but one silly incident made me so frustrated. Angry that no one seemed to remember that I hadn’t had dinner yet. Angry that I was angry? Why should I be angry? They couldn’t possibly have done anything else in the jam.

Sighhhh … adventures of a day without a telephone. If you ask me honestly, a phone has become pretty necessary even if I don’t use it that often.