We have a mutual dislike, technology and I.

For 3 years I've had a Casio Boulder cell phone. That's an extra year past my "new every 2" free upgrade because the phone I upgraded to (made to "military specifications") wasn't as durable as the Boulder. Plus, my phone was orange, which is pretty much the greatest color ever.

The thing that kills me is that it wasn't the construction of the phone that did it in. For three years I'd thrown it across rooms, stepped on it, dropped it, gotten it wet, used it to prop open doors, and even a couple of times as a hammer. The body of the thing was basically indestructible -- the Jeep of cell phones, if you will. And much like my old '96 Cherokee it was the internal things that kept breaking. It had been giving me some issues like occasionally dropping calls for no reason, a phenomenally short battery life, stalling when I was composing a text. Little things. Things I chalked up to being a 3-year old piece of technology which I estimate to be around 55 in human years. That point in time where some things just don't work they way they used to.And all the while some paint may have chipped off the outside but the chassis of my beloved Boulder was basically intact.
Today, the phone finally broke. I woke up on my own this morning at with that panicked feeling. I was at work until 2am that morning, so there was no way I was waking up on my own before my alarm clock. My alarm clock being on my phone. I picked the phone off the nightstand. Dead, even though it was plugged into the charger. It had, in fact, been charging before I fell asleep. I turned over, glance quickly at my wife's alarm clock.
9:36am
I was supposed to be at work at 9:00am. Shouting obscenities I flew from the bed, pulled on a clean uniform, grabbed my cell phone and keys, knowing I had an extra charger at work, and left.
A few hours later I was settled and drinking an extra-large coffee when I thought about my phone. I flipped open the plastic cover to the charging port and stared, baffled, at the empty hole there. Where was the connecting piece? The pins, or holes, or whatever they are that connects the charger and the phone?
Then I vaguely remembered awaking for no reason in the early morning light and fiddling with my phone. I thought it had been a dream, pulling the charger out and seeing through foggy vision that something was not ok. And being too exhausted to comprehend what it was or to force myself to wake up enough to figure it out.
It was the charging port, the piece that should be inside the phone, now outside but still attached to the end of the charger. Like extracting a technological tooth.

"He hates for me to write a word."

I just bought a copy of The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman on Amazon.com for $2.50 and so should you. This was one of my favorite school-assigned short stories, so much so that I'm not sure why I didn't already own a copy. (I have, for example, three copies of John Knowles's A Separate Peace. But that's very Conspiracy Theory of me....)

The Yellow Wallpaper is a giant. It addresses multiple themes, including a women's "domestic" place in a marriage, the "resting cure" for despression, self-expression, and the whole deal with the woman trapped behind the wallpaper. Interestingly enough, it was viewed as a dramatic work with some horror elements upon its first publishing. It wasn't til years later that the text was viewed in terms of the aforementioned themes.

Most interesting to me though, are the picture Gilman's actual words paint:

The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out. (5.6)

I really enjoy the "faint figure" in its shadowy vagueness lunging into our real vision with the word "shake." And then of course Gilman throws in "seemed" giving you the head's up that it's all imaginary and she knows it, but can't stop it. She's aware that she's describing someone imaginary doing something very real.