Ring, ring, why don't you give me a call?

I have lost my mobile and I am surprised at how bereft I feel.

More than that I am embarrassed by how bereft I feel.

I am also abashed that I have used the word ‘bereft’ twice (now three times) in a post about a bloody square of plastic and metal and… I don’t know, whatever the hell else is in there.

It is not merely that in losing the phone I have lost the numbers of half my friends, or even the fact that the phone was only about a month old (being fairly indifferent to the whole mobile-phone-comparison thing I bought the cheapest one I could find and you do, in fact, get what you pay for). It is that suddenly I feel as though my world has shrunk. Technically, yes, I can still call someone up, send them an email or even pop past their house. Despite not using a landline any more I still have enough other lines of communication open to mean I am (again technically) not quite an island.

But I feel like one.I can no longer text Ali to urge her to turn on Age of Love, alert Jade to the fact that I have just seen a picture of her freaky ex-ex-boyfriend in our newspaper or spontaneously lure someone out for a drink. I can’t while away boredom by sending someone increasingly insulting messages, or co-ordinate my weekend via some group texts.

I know all this is ridiculous and I feel as though I should be having an epiphany of some kind about the way that the possibility of constant and immediate communication can restrict us as well as liberate us and how we’ve lost the art of face-to-face contact or something but, fuck it, I’d really rather just have my phone back thanks.