Damn, I just realized that the world is supposed to end ten days from now...I think. Is it the stroke of midnight on the 21st or just at some point during the day? Well, give or take a few hours, the world will end sometime on or about December 21st.
Ah, I remember the last time the world ended. Y2K. Talk about anticlimactic. It's almost as if nothing happened. Of course, I knew nothing would happen. Many years before I thought it would be cool to set the time and date on my mother's work computer to 12/31/99 23:59:00. I stood back about five feet and waited for it to explode. Nothing.
Time passed, I reached 12th grade and everyone started yapping about canned goods and shotguns. I hated my high school so much that I thought it would be just my luck for the world to end six months before graduation. On New Year's Eve I faced the difficult choice of going down to The Mall to see a free concert hosted by Will Smith and Jada Pinkett or going to church.
Now this was back when I was a Jedi-Christian and, while I had no doubt that I was going to heaven, I really thought it would look good on my resume to be in church to hold the door open for Jesus on the off chance that He might come back that night. I heard on the radio that there was going to be a big midnight service out at the old US Air Arena. I decided to go there.
I went out there all by lonesome and didn't know a single person there. There was a lot of music and different people got up to speak. The theme of the night was "We aren't worried about Y2K because we KNOW where we're going if the world ends!!!" Every single person got up to say something along those lines and the thousands of people in the audience erupted into thunderous applause.
But a funny thing happened around 11:55. They asked people to come down closer to the floor so that we could join hands and praise the Lord as we rang in the new year. Then, they turned on the giant screen so that we could simultaneously watch the ball drop and pray/sing.
I was holding hands with two girls and we were rocking back and forth singing...something. "Yay Jesus...We're going to heaven...We're not afraid!" (Not the actual lyrics. I can't remember. Just go with it.)
All I know is that around 11:58, the volume in that place turned down REAL quick. It went from a deafening roar (We're not afraid!!!) to a stirring commotion (Okay, so like...maybe we are like kinda concerned, but we aint afraid) and then by 11:59, no one was singing, no one was rocking...everybody just kinda froze (We gon' die!). The preacher wasn't even singing anymore.
Then the countdown, 5-4-3-silence-silence...and nothing. I looked to my left and my right and realized that everyone was doing the same thing. It took about five seconds to sink in. We're ALIVE! And we went right back to singing..."Yay Jesus! We told you we weren't afraid!"
Monday, December 10, 2012
Sunday, December 9, 2012
And Another One
Here's my second video upload to my Youtube channel. Facebook friends have probably seen this one before, so consider it an oldie but goodie.
Friday, December 7, 2012
Midday Update: Hug Yourself
***Midday Update***
I feel like a horrible parent. I didn't get much sleep last night and my daughter woke up earlier than usual. My head hurts and I feel sick, which seems to be my default setting in the winter. Somehow the shame of my parenting is the only thing keeping me from laughing now. I'm laying on the couch where I'm drifting in and out of sleep, and I awake to see my daughter dancing in front of the television in a pair of shorts, a tank top, one of those winter hats with the flaps that come down over your ears with the ball on top, some sunglasses and a toy microphone. Into the microphone, she's shouting out letters and numbers. Apparently SuperWhy had long since stopped playing on the DVR and the screen went back to CNBC. She's shouting out stock ticker prices.
"A-A-P-L 5-3-1-9-7"
It's actually kinda funny, not just because she looks like Homeless American Idol, but because she actually has stock in Apple. I started her portfolio when she was born. So, her few shares of Apple are apparently down to 531.97. Maybe she was waking me up because she wanted me to dump it. Relax, I bought it at $250. You're doing better than most.
I'm learning today that the hardest thing about parenting is discipline. I don't mean disciplining them. I mean, disciplining yourself. She's addicted to Ritz Crackers. She'll eat a whole roll if you let her. So today she tried to con me into some. I said no, so she asked for a banana, knowing that the open roll of Ritz Crackers was sitting right next to the bunch of bananas. When I gave her the banana instead, she fell out. Then she wouldn't eat it. So I made her go stand in the corner.
Do you know how hard it is not to laugh at a child dressed up in a pink winter hat, with a yellow tank top, peach pants and holding a microphone? Especially when the kid starts fake crying into the microphone. When I came out of the bathroom she was standing in the corner hugging herself saying, "It's okay. It's okay. Hug!" Then she started kissing her own arm. Who are you talking to?
She looked back up at me and I did my best not to laugh. "I said stand there and be quiet!" Then I had to turn around real quick so that she couldn't see me laughing.
I'm a horrible parent.
I feel like a horrible parent. I didn't get much sleep last night and my daughter woke up earlier than usual. My head hurts and I feel sick, which seems to be my default setting in the winter. Somehow the shame of my parenting is the only thing keeping me from laughing now. I'm laying on the couch where I'm drifting in and out of sleep, and I awake to see my daughter dancing in front of the television in a pair of shorts, a tank top, one of those winter hats with the flaps that come down over your ears with the ball on top, some sunglasses and a toy microphone. Into the microphone, she's shouting out letters and numbers. Apparently SuperWhy had long since stopped playing on the DVR and the screen went back to CNBC. She's shouting out stock ticker prices.
"A-A-P-L 5-3-1-9-7"
It's actually kinda funny, not just because she looks like Homeless American Idol, but because she actually has stock in Apple. I started her portfolio when she was born. So, her few shares of Apple are apparently down to 531.97. Maybe she was waking me up because she wanted me to dump it. Relax, I bought it at $250. You're doing better than most.
I'm learning today that the hardest thing about parenting is discipline. I don't mean disciplining them. I mean, disciplining yourself. She's addicted to Ritz Crackers. She'll eat a whole roll if you let her. So today she tried to con me into some. I said no, so she asked for a banana, knowing that the open roll of Ritz Crackers was sitting right next to the bunch of bananas. When I gave her the banana instead, she fell out. Then she wouldn't eat it. So I made her go stand in the corner.
Do you know how hard it is not to laugh at a child dressed up in a pink winter hat, with a yellow tank top, peach pants and holding a microphone? Especially when the kid starts fake crying into the microphone. When I came out of the bathroom she was standing in the corner hugging herself saying, "It's okay. It's okay. Hug!" Then she started kissing her own arm. Who are you talking to?
She looked back up at me and I did my best not to laugh. "I said stand there and be quiet!" Then I had to turn around real quick so that she couldn't see me laughing.
I'm a horrible parent.
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Wanted: Rich Friend
I just realized something today. I don't know anyone who has anything. I was on Facebook and started scrolling through the newsfeed. One person got invited on a free cruise with their best friend. Somebody else thanked their parents for helping them get a house. Now you may be thinking, "Well, if they're in your newsfeed then you must know them." Nope. I've come to the sad realization that there are quite a few people in my friend list that I don't think I've ever met. And I'm not that kind of Facebook user.
It has never been my goal to have a million friends. In fact, I do a mass purge every year. There's one coming up at the end of the month. Everyone goes through a recertification process. Did you like or comment on anything on my page this year? Did I like or comment on your stuff? Are we related or do we have history that makes you indispensable? No? Then I'm afraid we're gonna have to let you go, Barack Obama.
Ironically, the people who I don't really know are the ones that I interact with most frequently on Facebook. It can be someone my wife knows and asked me to accept so that they could see pictures of my daughter. Or, someone has a friend who keeps hearing about my "hilarious" status updates and asked me to just add them so that they could read them for themselves.
These are the people who I need to get to know better. I don't want a handout, I just want to find out what their life is like. I worked on the last Census and a few of the kids there were students at Georgetown. We were talking about student loan debt. This girl said, "Thanks to parents, I don't have any loans." My naive mind took that to mean:
A) Mommy and Daddy have good credit so they qualified for the full amount of the Parent Loans.
B) Mommy and Daddy stayed on me the whole time from K-12 to make sure that I got a scholarship to college.
At NO POINT did my feeble, inner city, impoverished mind consider that she meant that her parents paid her tuition. The idea that a bill went to their house, was opened (probably with one of those pointy letter openers because they're balling outta control), and then someone wrote a check for the full amount and mailed it back in is just incredible.
That's up there with the girl that I liked in high school who, after a week of putting in some of my BEST talk game, finally invited me over her house one day on a Staff Development Day when her mother was at work. I got to her house and was taken aback by the fact that it was... a house. We poor folks have just adopted the term "house" to mean "the apartment that I live in." She had a single mom and still somehow lived in a house. They had stairs and a yard and no landlord. I was like, "Okay so did your grandmother die and leave your mom this house?"
She told me her mother bought it outright. She was a lawyer or an accountant or a baroness or something. She offered me a sandwich and she went to the fridge. I was waiting for the little round plastic thing of bologna and some store-brand white bread, but she pulled out a sub roll and a ziplock bag with the meat wrapped up in wax paper. That was the end of our courtship. I could afford an Oscar Meyer girl, but those deli meat girls were out of my league. "Did I do something wrong, Ordale?" You sure as hell did. When you said you'd never had Kraft, you talked yourself outta the best thing that ever happened to you.
[End tangent]
Where was I? Oh yeah...I want to be able to say that I know at least one person who has something. I'm not saying that my current friends aren't good enough. They are fantastic. Just the fact that the majority of my closest friends are people I met in high school says a lot. Their longevity is a testament to their character. Still...they're broke as hell. Hell, I can do that by myself. I don't want anything from anybody. I'm no moocher. I just want to say that I know a NFL player or a dude with a boat.
I can't imagine what it would have been like to have a parent pay for me to do anything, let alone go to college. The moral of my life story was, "You got any McDonalds/K.B. Toy Store/Teddy Ruxpin money?" That's not to say that my mother and grandmother didn't do anything for me...because they did. But at no point in the process did I ever feel like, 'Oh they can afford it." I went on a ski trip one February and knew that I was not allowed to ask for anything, not even the time of day, for the other ten months.
"Yes Mommy. I do want to go to see House Party with you, but um, it's like March and um...will you still be able to get me a Game Genie for Christmas if I go?" "Oh, okay...I'll just stay home and wait for it come out on tape."
Now that I think about it...I'd settle for a friend who had House Party on the official New Line Cinema manufactured VHS and not some Sony blank tape with three other movies of varying color and quality with "House Party, 48 Hours, Coming 2 America" written in black magic marker across the back.
It has never been my goal to have a million friends. In fact, I do a mass purge every year. There's one coming up at the end of the month. Everyone goes through a recertification process. Did you like or comment on anything on my page this year? Did I like or comment on your stuff? Are we related or do we have history that makes you indispensable? No? Then I'm afraid we're gonna have to let you go, Barack Obama.
Ironically, the people who I don't really know are the ones that I interact with most frequently on Facebook. It can be someone my wife knows and asked me to accept so that they could see pictures of my daughter. Or, someone has a friend who keeps hearing about my "hilarious" status updates and asked me to just add them so that they could read them for themselves.
These are the people who I need to get to know better. I don't want a handout, I just want to find out what their life is like. I worked on the last Census and a few of the kids there were students at Georgetown. We were talking about student loan debt. This girl said, "Thanks to parents, I don't have any loans." My naive mind took that to mean:
A) Mommy and Daddy have good credit so they qualified for the full amount of the Parent Loans.
B) Mommy and Daddy stayed on me the whole time from K-12 to make sure that I got a scholarship to college.
At NO POINT did my feeble, inner city, impoverished mind consider that she meant that her parents paid her tuition. The idea that a bill went to their house, was opened (probably with one of those pointy letter openers because they're balling outta control), and then someone wrote a check for the full amount and mailed it back in is just incredible.
That's up there with the girl that I liked in high school who, after a week of putting in some of my BEST talk game, finally invited me over her house one day on a Staff Development Day when her mother was at work. I got to her house and was taken aback by the fact that it was... a house. We poor folks have just adopted the term "house" to mean "the apartment that I live in." She had a single mom and still somehow lived in a house. They had stairs and a yard and no landlord. I was like, "Okay so did your grandmother die and leave your mom this house?"
She told me her mother bought it outright. She was a lawyer or an accountant or a baroness or something. She offered me a sandwich and she went to the fridge. I was waiting for the little round plastic thing of bologna and some store-brand white bread, but she pulled out a sub roll and a ziplock bag with the meat wrapped up in wax paper. That was the end of our courtship. I could afford an Oscar Meyer girl, but those deli meat girls were out of my league. "Did I do something wrong, Ordale?" You sure as hell did. When you said you'd never had Kraft, you talked yourself outta the best thing that ever happened to you.
[End tangent]
Where was I? Oh yeah...I want to be able to say that I know at least one person who has something. I'm not saying that my current friends aren't good enough. They are fantastic. Just the fact that the majority of my closest friends are people I met in high school says a lot. Their longevity is a testament to their character. Still...they're broke as hell. Hell, I can do that by myself. I don't want anything from anybody. I'm no moocher. I just want to say that I know a NFL player or a dude with a boat.
I can't imagine what it would have been like to have a parent pay for me to do anything, let alone go to college. The moral of my life story was, "You got any McDonalds/K.B. Toy Store/Teddy Ruxpin money?" That's not to say that my mother and grandmother didn't do anything for me...because they did. But at no point in the process did I ever feel like, 'Oh they can afford it." I went on a ski trip one February and knew that I was not allowed to ask for anything, not even the time of day, for the other ten months.
"Yes Mommy. I do want to go to see House Party with you, but um, it's like March and um...will you still be able to get me a Game Genie for Christmas if I go?" "Oh, okay...I'll just stay home and wait for it come out on tape."
Now that I think about it...I'd settle for a friend who had House Party on the official New Line Cinema manufactured VHS and not some Sony blank tape with three other movies of varying color and quality with "House Party, 48 Hours, Coming 2 America" written in black magic marker across the back.
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Youtubing
"This face right here, Gina, belongs on the tizzube!"
I finally got around to creating a Youtube channel. You can check it out here. Don't get too excited, I only have one video. It kinda sucks, but I'm getting my feet wet with iMovie. I'm sure there's something better out there to use, but I'm what the French call, 'Le Broke', so I have to use what came with my computer. Also, pay no attention to the monotone voice. I have a cold, I'm doped up on medicine and I was trying to sound serious.
Okay, so I finally got around to creating a Youtube channel and uploading a video. Now I'm not gonna lie. It sucks. I personally hate the sound of my own voice (although I love talking incessantly), and I have a cold so I sound super monotone. I assure you that I have an actual personality and a mastery of things like 'inflection' and 'tone.' It's my first video and I'm still figuring iMovie out. Give me a pass. I promise the next one will have some pizazz.
I'm asking everyone to cross their fingers and pray to their respective gods. If you worship money, that'd really be helpful as I signed up for Adsense, which means that for every 1,000 views I'll get like a nickel or something. Anyway, I'm praying that I don't catch the ire of someone crazy. The decision to use my real name on this blog was not made lightly. People are looking for any reason not to hire someone these days and I'm sure that I've given them plenty of excuses with the profanity, bad grammar and honesty. "You quit working to watch your baby? Shiftless! Get outta here!" I've been even more wary of using pictures of myself and especially pictures of my daughter. People are crazy. I've written about some of them at length.
But I really enjoy writing and if I ever get a moment alone I'd like to put together a little e-book or something of all my adventures. It worked out well for The Hobbit and we're about the same size. If he can do it, why can't I? Anyway, I figure that if I half ass it then I don't really believe in myself. If by some strange happenstance a grammatically challenged e-book about a baby trying to kill a grown man becomes a best seller...someone is bound to find out what I look like, what my kid looks like and all sorts of other personal details. So, there it is, a Youtube video that finally puts a face to the legend of the warrior-baby.
Enjoy.
PS, I promise they'll get better and I'll sound like I have an emotion chip.
I finally got around to creating a Youtube channel. You can check it out here. Don't get too excited, I only have one video. It kinda sucks, but I'm getting my feet wet with iMovie. I'm sure there's something better out there to use, but I'm what the French call, 'Le Broke', so I have to use what came with my computer. Also, pay no attention to the monotone voice. I have a cold, I'm doped up on medicine and I was trying to sound serious.
Okay, so I finally got around to creating a Youtube channel and uploading a video. Now I'm not gonna lie. It sucks. I personally hate the sound of my own voice (although I love talking incessantly), and I have a cold so I sound super monotone. I assure you that I have an actual personality and a mastery of things like 'inflection' and 'tone.' It's my first video and I'm still figuring iMovie out. Give me a pass. I promise the next one will have some pizazz.
I'm asking everyone to cross their fingers and pray to their respective gods. If you worship money, that'd really be helpful as I signed up for Adsense, which means that for every 1,000 views I'll get like a nickel or something. Anyway, I'm praying that I don't catch the ire of someone crazy. The decision to use my real name on this blog was not made lightly. People are looking for any reason not to hire someone these days and I'm sure that I've given them plenty of excuses with the profanity, bad grammar and honesty. "You quit working to watch your baby? Shiftless! Get outta here!" I've been even more wary of using pictures of myself and especially pictures of my daughter. People are crazy. I've written about some of them at length.
But I really enjoy writing and if I ever get a moment alone I'd like to put together a little e-book or something of all my adventures. It worked out well for The Hobbit and we're about the same size. If he can do it, why can't I? Anyway, I figure that if I half ass it then I don't really believe in myself. If by some strange happenstance a grammatically challenged e-book about a baby trying to kill a grown man becomes a best seller...someone is bound to find out what I look like, what my kid looks like and all sorts of other personal details. So, there it is, a Youtube video that finally puts a face to the legend of the warrior-baby.
Enjoy.
PS, I promise they'll get better and I'll sound like I have an emotion chip.
Monday, December 3, 2012
A Tale of Two Babies
Friday we babysat for the first time as parents. It was an eye opening experience. Watching kids is nothing new to me. Even before it was my official job description, I was the family babysitter...at five. But this was the first time that I had a child of my own to compare and contrast.
Friday's specimen: Wonderbaby. That's the little girl that I wrote about before who's four or five months younger than my daughter, but has clearly been here before. I finally got the chance to put the two of them in a room with a paper clip, stick of gum and 9 volt battery and just stand back and watch to see who would build the bigger nuclear weapon.
Right off the bat, things weren't looking good for Team Allen. The parents showed up, dropped off the kid and rather than catching the holy ghost and screaming at the prospect of being left (like my child would do), she just said "Bye Mommy. Bye Daddy." I don't trust a kid that doesn't fear me. I hid all the sharp objects right away.
Time came to eat and on the menu: Pizza. My daughter doesn't like pizza, but the two parents gave it to us for free, so it is imperative that my child learn to appreciate free stuff. We asked Wonderbaby, "Are you hungry? Would you like some pizza." She looked up all doe-eyed, "Yes." We asked my child. "Do you want some pizza?" She didn't take her eyes away from the TV: "Crackers!"
Me: "We don't have crackers, but we have pizza."
Her: "Sausage!"
Me: "No sausage either. We have pizza."
Her: "Okay (ten syllables of jibberish) chicken."
Me: "We have piz-za. That's it. Just piz-za."
Her: (disappointed stare)
So Wonderbaby ate her entire slice of pizza from the point to the crust. Mine only ate the cheese. We asked Wonderbaby if she wanted some more and (right hand to God) she said, "Yes. I want one more piece." I wanted to go to like NY and get her a real slice just because she was proper and specific. We asked mine if she wanted more and she hastily replied, "Cracker?"
Dinner was over (evident by my daughter just getting up and walking away). Wonderbaby remained at the table. "Um, you can get up if you like." She said, "I want to wash my hands." Don't get me wrong, we were gonna do that, but I'm used to having to bait mine into the bathroom. "Hey look...something shiny! GOTCHA!" Afterwards she went and stood directly in front of the television. "Wonderbaby, don't stand so close. Have a seat on the couch." She turned around, went to the couch and sat there for the rest of the evening until her parents came back. Meanwhile, mine was somewhere in the corner building a pipe bomb.
I was very intrigued by that little girl. I really wanted to take her sock off and see if there was a battery compartment inside her foot. You have to build a child like that. They aren't just born that way. As pleasant an experience as it was, I think that I would lose my mind if my daughter was like that. You ever seen those movies where the super soldiers retire and they're forced to live amongst regular people? They usually go crazy.
My daughter keeps me sharp. I'm always on guard. Yesterday, she came to me in the kitchen saying "Daisy! Daisy!" Then she grabbed my hand and led me to the couch. She got down on the floor and started looking under the couch saying "Daisy!" So, I assumed that her Daisy Duck doll was under the couch and out of her reach. I got on the floor and started reaching for it. About three seconds later my spine crushed in towards the floor and made contact with the inside of my navel. She-Hulk Hogan decided that it was the perfect moment to stand up on the couch and jump off the top rope onto my back. If I had feeling in my hands, I would've beat the hell out of her. I never found Daisy and I wonder if she was even looking for her in the first place.
I got sloppy, and moments like that show what my daughter does for my survival skills. I slipped, but I won't do it again. She's assertive, manipulative, calculating and sometimes just plain loud. She reminds me of a younger me. I realize that genetics are stronger than I thought. I probably couldn't make her have Wonderbaby's personality if I tried. Her parents seem like quiet, unassuming people. I highly doubt that either of them ever spent a lot of time in the principal's office. They probably never even got a cafeteria worker fired by going on the news and saying that the food was spoiled. If she's anything like me, my daughter is gonna need a good civil defense attorney. We'll keep Wonderbaby's number on file.
Friday's specimen: Wonderbaby. That's the little girl that I wrote about before who's four or five months younger than my daughter, but has clearly been here before. I finally got the chance to put the two of them in a room with a paper clip, stick of gum and 9 volt battery and just stand back and watch to see who would build the bigger nuclear weapon.
Right off the bat, things weren't looking good for Team Allen. The parents showed up, dropped off the kid and rather than catching the holy ghost and screaming at the prospect of being left (like my child would do), she just said "Bye Mommy. Bye Daddy." I don't trust a kid that doesn't fear me. I hid all the sharp objects right away.
Time came to eat and on the menu: Pizza. My daughter doesn't like pizza, but the two parents gave it to us for free, so it is imperative that my child learn to appreciate free stuff. We asked Wonderbaby, "Are you hungry? Would you like some pizza." She looked up all doe-eyed, "Yes." We asked my child. "Do you want some pizza?" She didn't take her eyes away from the TV: "Crackers!"
Me: "We don't have crackers, but we have pizza."
Her: "Sausage!"
Me: "No sausage either. We have pizza."
Her: "Okay (ten syllables of jibberish) chicken."
Me: "We have piz-za. That's it. Just piz-za."
Her: (disappointed stare)
So Wonderbaby ate her entire slice of pizza from the point to the crust. Mine only ate the cheese. We asked Wonderbaby if she wanted some more and (right hand to God) she said, "Yes. I want one more piece." I wanted to go to like NY and get her a real slice just because she was proper and specific. We asked mine if she wanted more and she hastily replied, "Cracker?"
Dinner was over (evident by my daughter just getting up and walking away). Wonderbaby remained at the table. "Um, you can get up if you like." She said, "I want to wash my hands." Don't get me wrong, we were gonna do that, but I'm used to having to bait mine into the bathroom. "Hey look...something shiny! GOTCHA!" Afterwards she went and stood directly in front of the television. "Wonderbaby, don't stand so close. Have a seat on the couch." She turned around, went to the couch and sat there for the rest of the evening until her parents came back. Meanwhile, mine was somewhere in the corner building a pipe bomb.
I was very intrigued by that little girl. I really wanted to take her sock off and see if there was a battery compartment inside her foot. You have to build a child like that. They aren't just born that way. As pleasant an experience as it was, I think that I would lose my mind if my daughter was like that. You ever seen those movies where the super soldiers retire and they're forced to live amongst regular people? They usually go crazy.
My daughter keeps me sharp. I'm always on guard. Yesterday, she came to me in the kitchen saying "Daisy! Daisy!" Then she grabbed my hand and led me to the couch. She got down on the floor and started looking under the couch saying "Daisy!" So, I assumed that her Daisy Duck doll was under the couch and out of her reach. I got on the floor and started reaching for it. About three seconds later my spine crushed in towards the floor and made contact with the inside of my navel. She-Hulk Hogan decided that it was the perfect moment to stand up on the couch and jump off the top rope onto my back. If I had feeling in my hands, I would've beat the hell out of her. I never found Daisy and I wonder if she was even looking for her in the first place.
I got sloppy, and moments like that show what my daughter does for my survival skills. I slipped, but I won't do it again. She's assertive, manipulative, calculating and sometimes just plain loud. She reminds me of a younger me. I realize that genetics are stronger than I thought. I probably couldn't make her have Wonderbaby's personality if I tried. Her parents seem like quiet, unassuming people. I highly doubt that either of them ever spent a lot of time in the principal's office. They probably never even got a cafeteria worker fired by going on the news and saying that the food was spoiled. If she's anything like me, my daughter is gonna need a good civil defense attorney. We'll keep Wonderbaby's number on file.
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Apollonia IV
Saturday afternoon at approximately 4:23PM EST, my wife's iPhone, "Apollonia," suffered a heart attack while riding on the Capital Beltway. Doctors at the Genius Bar attempted an experimental battery transplant to no avail. She was pronounced dead on Sunday December 2. My wife is understandably inconsolable. Apollonia IV was her first and only iPhone and just two months shy of her second birthday. It seems like only yesterday when I brought her home from the Apple Store...
We had been trying for an iPhone since 2007. There was something about us being Verizon members that made it impossible. In the Winter of 2010, my wife decided to call it quits. We had allowed "New Every Two" upgrades to remain on our account for almost four years. "It's time to just accept that it's not meant to be," she said looking down at the burgundy carpet in the Bethesda Verizon Store. I wasn't willing to give up hope just yet, but trying to convince her only made her angry. "We could always just adopt a Droid." Hearing her say that made me shudder. There's nothing wrong with Android, it just wasn't what I wanted. I just wanted to see her smile. We convinced ourselves that we were doing the right thing. The "Buy one, get one free" sale didn't hurt either. We walked out as the proud owners of twin Droid Xs.
Three weeks later, they announced the Verizon iPhone 4. Fate can be cruel at times. It was too late to return them, and my wife swore that she was happy with her Droid. I made the tough decision to take my chances with eBay. A few days later I had four hundred bucks and I bought my iPhone. It immediately caused a rift between my wife and I. Too often, I caught her comparing apps between the two phones. "Why is it so clear on yours? Why isn't that app on Droid?" She moped around the house for a week. I couldn't take it anymore.
For Valentine's Day, I went to her job at lunch. I gave her a vase of flowers and a gift bag. Inside the bag was a box of chocolates and a framed black and white photo of me and my daughter. She was happy...and OCD'ish as ever. She noticed that the picture wasn't level inside the frame. It was an ugly boxy frame that I got for six bucks at Target. If only I'd been more attentive when setting the photo.
If I had caught it instead of her then she would've just sat the frame on her desk and gone about her day. At exactly three o'clock, she would've gotten a call from me at her desk where I would've told her about some cool new feature of my phone. She would've listened and feigned interest even though she would have been envious as hell. I would've made it worse by dragging out the conversation for at least another two minutes until she heard her new picture frame playing "Overjoyed" (one of our songs). She would've been baffled at first as she tried to figure out where the music was coming from and, more importantly, how to turn it off. Eventually she would've removed the latch, opened the back of the frame and found her brand new iPhone loaded with all the apps she liked on mine, a photo album of us throughout the years and a playlist that I made called "I Love You." As a bonus, I put my number in the phone under "Best Husband Ever."
But that didn't happen. She noticed the picture was off-centered, and opened the back to fix it. I got a phone call of her screaming and all I could say in response was, "Goddammit!" Flash forward nearly two years and Apollonia is no longer with us. The stock market hasn't been as good to me this year as it was then, so I can't just run out and buy another one. I have to pick between a new phone for her or Christmas presents for my daughter. She doesn't even know why there's a fake tree in the middle of the living room, so we could get by. But I want to buy her gifts. So the best I can do is what I just did.
I called Verizon and deactivated the iPhone that I love so much that it has not left its case except to be polished and knelt before once a week. I dug my old flip phone out of a box somewhere and activated it on my line, then I put my iPhone on hers. It's the best I can do right now. So when you see me walking down the street with a portable CD player (I gave my aunt my old iPod once I got my phone), a digital camera and a cell phone duct taped together...don't laugh at me. I do it for love.
We had been trying for an iPhone since 2007. There was something about us being Verizon members that made it impossible. In the Winter of 2010, my wife decided to call it quits. We had allowed "New Every Two" upgrades to remain on our account for almost four years. "It's time to just accept that it's not meant to be," she said looking down at the burgundy carpet in the Bethesda Verizon Store. I wasn't willing to give up hope just yet, but trying to convince her only made her angry. "We could always just adopt a Droid." Hearing her say that made me shudder. There's nothing wrong with Android, it just wasn't what I wanted. I just wanted to see her smile. We convinced ourselves that we were doing the right thing. The "Buy one, get one free" sale didn't hurt either. We walked out as the proud owners of twin Droid Xs.
Three weeks later, they announced the Verizon iPhone 4. Fate can be cruel at times. It was too late to return them, and my wife swore that she was happy with her Droid. I made the tough decision to take my chances with eBay. A few days later I had four hundred bucks and I bought my iPhone. It immediately caused a rift between my wife and I. Too often, I caught her comparing apps between the two phones. "Why is it so clear on yours? Why isn't that app on Droid?" She moped around the house for a week. I couldn't take it anymore.
For Valentine's Day, I went to her job at lunch. I gave her a vase of flowers and a gift bag. Inside the bag was a box of chocolates and a framed black and white photo of me and my daughter. She was happy...and OCD'ish as ever. She noticed that the picture wasn't level inside the frame. It was an ugly boxy frame that I got for six bucks at Target. If only I'd been more attentive when setting the photo.
If I had caught it instead of her then she would've just sat the frame on her desk and gone about her day. At exactly three o'clock, she would've gotten a call from me at her desk where I would've told her about some cool new feature of my phone. She would've listened and feigned interest even though she would have been envious as hell. I would've made it worse by dragging out the conversation for at least another two minutes until she heard her new picture frame playing "Overjoyed" (one of our songs). She would've been baffled at first as she tried to figure out where the music was coming from and, more importantly, how to turn it off. Eventually she would've removed the latch, opened the back of the frame and found her brand new iPhone loaded with all the apps she liked on mine, a photo album of us throughout the years and a playlist that I made called "I Love You." As a bonus, I put my number in the phone under "Best Husband Ever."
But that didn't happen. She noticed the picture was off-centered, and opened the back to fix it. I got a phone call of her screaming and all I could say in response was, "Goddammit!" Flash forward nearly two years and Apollonia is no longer with us. The stock market hasn't been as good to me this year as it was then, so I can't just run out and buy another one. I have to pick between a new phone for her or Christmas presents for my daughter. She doesn't even know why there's a fake tree in the middle of the living room, so we could get by. But I want to buy her gifts. So the best I can do is what I just did.
I called Verizon and deactivated the iPhone that I love so much that it has not left its case except to be polished and knelt before once a week. I dug my old flip phone out of a box somewhere and activated it on my line, then I put my iPhone on hers. It's the best I can do right now. So when you see me walking down the street with a portable CD player (I gave my aunt my old iPod once I got my phone), a digital camera and a cell phone duct taped together...don't laugh at me. I do it for love.
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