Last Friday began just like any other day- I awoke, prayed and then meditated. After giving good morning kisses to everyone and drinking a cup of warm water with lemon, I usually grab my smartphone. However, a low battery kept me from doing anything productive. Before leaving the house for my daily activities, I charged the phone for short time, thinking that was all that it needed.

Anyone with a smartphone knows to travel with a charger, because the battery life sucks and mine – like many other – died shortly after I left the house. I immediately attempted to charge it, but after many tries, it still would not power on!

Thus began my week of “throwback moments.”

That afternoon, I was expecting a very important call and they had initially planned to call my cell – naturally. Instead, I ended up having to call them…on a landline! Other than having to scramble at the last minute to find a phone to use – the conversation went rather well.

Shortly after finishing with the call, I moseyed on over to Sprint. After running a diagnostic test on my HTC EVO, they told me it needed a new screen. This particular store did not have the replacement part in stock for my phone and would have to special order it. After checking with other Sprint stores around town, I was sent to their North location. I left the phone there for an hour, so that they could fix the problem while I ran errands. When I returned, the technician informed me that, “They’ve replaced the screen, but the phone is dead (as in dead-dead and nonfunctioning). An HTC EVO has been ordered and it’ll be in sometime next week.” – It was Friday!!

— NEXT WEEK?!?!? SHHHHIIIIIIIIEEEEETTTTTT…….Ran through my head immediately.

Unable to survive an entire week without a phone, I went home and rummaged through a few storage bins, searching for an old LG Rumor Remix. Wow! All of my contacts were gone; I had no social media and no e-mail. It was just a phone. I was aware of the old phone’s capabilities – email, Facebook, etc. – but I was annoyed and was NOT in the mood to deal with setting any of that up on the phone. Besides, it just would not be the same.

Begrudgingly, I decided to drag around and use my laptop that week for emails and social media and used my phone only to place calls.

Monday and Tuesday were interesting, as I wanted to take a photo here and there, buuut… without Instagram, the photos just did not look — right, you know.

Wednesday is when I was really sent back a couple of years.

I had a lunch meeting at an unfamiliar with the location. My first thoughts were to use my phone’s GPS to guide me directly to the restaurant. I soon realized that was not an option with the old phone. Before I left the house, I had to write down the directions on a sheet of paper. BANANAS!

The rest of the week was filled with similar stories. Boo-hoo! Poor me, right?!

Well, I successfully made it through the week and I must admit that there is a HUGE plus with the LG Rumor – the battery life! Ahhhh… what a relief it was to have a phone that was able to keep its charge throughout the entire day. I had forgotten what it was like for the battery to be a non-issue.

Overall, I was not happy about what had happened to my smartphone and losing ALL of my contacts. However, not having it made me appreciate it even more. Plus, using the old phone wasn’t all bad. At the beginning, it was difficult to adjust to, but as it turned out, it was nice just to slow down a bit for a week.

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