A night without my mobile phone

I bought my first mobile phone in 1997, just after pagers were all the rage.

And how cool was it to own a pager? A service where you phone up and speak to an operator to give them a message to send to the pager.

Imagine messaging your boyfriend or girlfriend now through another person?

Well that happened folks!

My first phone, simply was a phone to make phone calls with, a hard concept to imagine in 2022!

A mobile phone without internet and without a camera.

The days when people used to take their cameras out separately and for this reason, it was mainly kept for special occasions.

My first phone was large and bulky with no frills or fancy flaps to flip. I suppose it was the equivalent to Television in the 90’s when they brought out Ceefax, where you could use your TV remote control to browse Teletext Holidays, after all Television was made for Television shows not shopping for holidays! But that was great fun whilst it lasted.

Whether it be a trusty old Nokia, Blackberry, Samsung, iPhone, I’ve not spent the night without one!

Well, not entirely true, exceptions are;

1; Losing my phone whilst drunk.

2; Dropping my phone down the toilet in a club and asking the toilet attendant to help resuscitate it with paper towels, it didn’t survive.

3; Oh and that time I dropped my phone in the bath, that did survive once a friend had emptied the pool of water from inside.

4; I also drove over my phone once, it accidentally escaped from the car door whilst I was getting in the drivers seat.

Other than this, it is the first night without a mobile phone, now let's get back to that.

That is 24 years of attachment to an inanimate object. But something I love so dearly.

My phone is full of beautiful photographs, contacts, app’s, favourites, word documents, everything in a day to occupy or distract you!

So I'll set the scene, I’ve had a particular busy day in the office and my friend is waiting outside in his car for us to follow each other to drive to said walking destination close to home.

We arranged to go for a walk before the sun sets.

I'm already 20 minutes late locking up the office. In an attempt to leave quickly, I make my last phone call whilst closing the office window, pick up my bag, check for my keys, use the toilet, load the office dishwasher, turn out the lights, lock up and run out the door.

A few minutes had passed when I was sat at the traffic lights and the horror fell upon me, that moment I realised I'm without my phone.

I notice it’s not plugged into my charger, is it in my handbag? Did it slide down the side of the door when I turned a corner? Well I can’t look down the side of the seats now. Do I remember carrying it out of the office with me when I locked up? I don’t think so!

And I think how it’s been such a busy day only this morning I was driving to work wondering if I had turned the electric hob ring off at home! I definitely unplugged the hair straighteners.

Oh dear, I need a Velcro suit to stick all the things to me I could possibly lose, well maybe not!

I do use the saying ‘I would forget my head it if wasn’t screwed on’

My phone has a bright red case so it’s easy to see, I could have put it on the car roof when opening the car door, I hope not! The car and phone are both the same colour.

After all I have left a plate on the car roof before and driven 2 miles down the road with it still safely on the roof on arrival, I know how scatty I can be!

But I'm not turning back now as the light is fading and it’s a 30 minute drive towards home for said walking spot and the light will fade.

The only torch I have would be on my phone in any case, now I don’t even have that back-up for when it goes dark.

My friend and I enjoyed our walk as the sun went down over the Gloucestershire muddy fields and tracks, we even managed to get back to our cars in half light.

So no need to worry of having no mobile phone for torch light after all.

And as I head home I get thinking, how hard can a night without a phone really be?

First challenge.

I’m not the most practical of people, I don’t own a watch, not done for years. I don’t like the idea of constantly checking time, the irony as when I do have my phone I’m constantly looking at it, WhatsApp, messenger, hotmail, gmail, Instagram, facebook for messages. Acutely aware of the minute I have to get back to the desk from lunch break.

I have no clocks in my apartment, well yes I do, one on the cooker which I never set.

One on the radio unit which surprise surprise I didn’t set, but I can turn on the TV to see what the time is or turn on my laptop it’s just a bit awkward.

My phone is my alarm clock, so now I'm relying on my body clock to wake me in the morning! This is a scary prospect.

I live near a town centre with a church, so the church bells chime each hour, if I'm half awake I can count what time it is in the morning. I’ve decided, that method to wake me up will do!

So now I have it, count the chimes, when I think its 6.00am, turn on the TV to check the time!

Of course this is not the only dilemma.

I gave up my landline before christmas to save money on bills, as I never used it and people were mis-dialing me thinking I was the doctors surgery, so I cant phone anyone on a landline to inform them they cant reach me on my mobile.

It’s the fear of missing out! I can’t seem to relax wondering if anyone is trying to contact me and if so, why am I not responding to them!

I can’t even recall any phone numbers off the top of my head other than my own anyway, so having a landline wouldn’t have helped anyway!

You must be thinking I'm not the type of person to call in the event of an emergency (Probably right!)

Then I recall the last time I turned my mobile phone off for the night, in order to have a good nights sleep and not be disturbed.

It was the night my father was rushed into hospital. Thankfully he was okay but it made me fearful to even turn off my phone after that. I then set my i phone emergency contacts after that night, so now a chosen few can get through to me even if I’m on do not disturb!

My thoughts were mainly, how do I contact my family?

I feel so lost, this is ridiculous it’s only been a few hours without a phone and I’m acting like it’s Armageddon!

I used to roam the streets for hours and take long bikes rides without any form of contact when I was younger, with 50p and a drink and a sandwich and never got into bother when I was a child, how things have changed? How times have changed!

Should we be in fear of how much of our lives revolve around a device?

A desire to keep scrolling, the hours of lost time.

I’m writing this on my laptop as I don’t have my phone as a distraction. Maybe I’m being more productive?

The outcome was, I did wake for work, I did find my phone in my office drawer and nobody was trying to contact me!

My overall conclusion is; we are so conditioned to be able to reach other in this day and age? Just like that!

I would truly like to have a day without a mobile phone and not feel bad about it, without need for anyone to know where I am, without fear that people might be trying to contact me. Some time out. It just might take a bit of time to get used to!

In the meantime, I’ll buy myself a phone book for numbers as back up, I’ll buy myself an alarm clock and maybe somebody will invent a Velcro suit!

Victoria x