My cousin called Sunday night. She’s 29, lives in Chicago, and is totally hip and cool. How she puts up with the naiveté and hiplessness of this suburban 40-year-old with perpetual dog hair on her machine wash only clothes is beyond me. Maybe it falls under the same mysterious wavelength of how I put up with my husband’s emailing under the dining room table.
“What’s up? How was your weekend?”
“My life is now over. I discovered I’m married to an addict.”
“Ohmygawd Karen! Not Scott! What is it — Alcohol? Golf? The Internet?”
“No, worse. He’s addicted to his new Blackberry.”
“You mean his Crackberry?”
“Ha! I hadn’t heard it called that before.”
“You don’t get out much anymore, do you?”
“Don’t rub it in. Besides, I went to Walmart, Big Lots and Sears all in one day last week. Now what am I going to do about this addiction?”
“How bad is it?”
“Well, Saturday night we went to dinner at our friends’ house. We banished the children to the kitchen and the four of us sat like real adults in the dining room. We had wine, three colors of food, matching flatware and complete-sentenced conversations. I was beginning to feel semi-relaxed when out of the corner of my eye I saw Scott’s fingers moving under the table. And they weren’t reaching for my knee. He was answering office email!
“He finally agreed to leave the Blackberry in the car on Sunday, then sneaked out to the garage during commercials to check his email and phone messages. He’ll check the weather forecast while driving home from work. If it wouldn’t wipe out my monthly chocolate budget, I almost wish he’d get a ticket for reckless driving. But how would the officer know which overworked, deadline-ridden urban professional commuter to pull over first? These folks are getting so adept at multitasking their entire lives on a three-by-inch-square of plastic — it’s unnatural I tell you.”
“Don’t worry too much, Kar. The initial thrill will wear off, kinda of like my last boyfriend. At least you know Scott won’t use his Blackberry for the latest craze.”
“What, Barmitvah by Blackberry?”
“No, matchmaking. Some nightclubs now stock Blackberrys at the tables so patrons can flirt via text if they’re too scared to talk to someone’s face. Patrons are assigned numbers they wear like nametags, so other text messengers on the hunt can identify them.”
“Have you tried it?”
“No, but you have to admit, they are pretty incredible little gadgets.”
“True, but unless that gadget can cook dinner, clean up dog barf, and match 372 varying shades of white athletic socks into matching pairs before the school bus arrives at 6:40 tomorrow morning, I don’t want it.”
Karen Rinehart is a syndicated newspaper columnist, public speaker, and creator of The Bus Stop Mommies™. Her book, Invisible Underwear, Bus Stop Mommies and Other Things True To Life, is a popular read in book clubs, school pick up lines, and soccer fields. She enjoys hearing from readers across the States and as far away as Australia, Japan, and England. You can read more at www.busstopmommies.com. Karen lives in North Carolina with her two kids, two dogs, and one husband, where they attend St. James Catholic Church. (Well, they leave the dogs at home.)
