Losing a cell phone gets easier every day
A payday loan will get me out of this pickle. Here’s how I got into it… I went to an unusual funeral yesterday. My old schoolmate, Sid, bought it when he skidded off the N55 and hit a tree at about 90 miles an hour. Sid was always a little wild and was never a great driver. We met at elementary school and were firm friends throughout our lives, the last five years lunching together every Tuesday at Steve’s Sandwich Shop on Maple Street. It was quite painful for me to watch Sid’s departure after more than sixty years of active friendship.
Sid, the amateur computer buff
- Image via Wikipedia
Sid’s funeral was different. His wife of forty-eight years, Clara, is a strong-willed and determined woman and she made a decision an hour after she received the news of her husband’s death. She asked the Funeral Director to lengthen Sid’s grave by about 18 inches, not that Sid was extra tall, but she wanted to bury Sid’s computer with him.
“Sid was always fiddling with his computer, adding programs and memory and games, deleting stuff, undoing the screws at the back and messing with all those chips and wires and thingies inside. I am sure no one else can use the computer after all the changes he made to it, so I decided it should go with its master. And perhaps it will be of some consolation to poor Sidney, wherever he is!” she added, a tear rolling down her cheek. “I will ask our son Tony to apply for a payday loan and we will buy a new computer for the house, one that Sid has not modified and that will always work when we switch it on.”
We bury Sid
We stood around the grave and watched as the coffin bearing Sid was laid in its final resting place. Silently the cemetery workers then placed the keyboard, screen and disk drive, each clad in a see-through plastic dust cover, in place at the head of the grave. Prayers were read, a few short eulogies were delivered and we were about to file away from the graveside when Clara clutched my arm.
My cell phone goes with Sid
“Pete, do you have your cell phone on you?” I passed it over. “Thank you,” she said. “I will bury this with Sid too. The email may be problematic and a phone is more reliable. Perhaps he will want to make contact with me.” She tossed my phone into the hole and smiled at me. “Poor Sydney!” she sobbed.
No more emails from Sid?
I have to say that I would be surprised to receive e-mails or phone calls from Sid in the future, but who really knows?
I won’t take it with me
You understand now why I need a new cell phone. I hate the things. They keep you tied to the leash as it were; they ring at the most inconvenient times and the battery is always flat when you need to make an urgent call. I would love to return to the pre-mobile phone era of freedom and silence. But what can I do? I’ve learned I can’t live without one. How soon can I get that payday loan to buy a new cell phone?
Great story!