How A Dorky Holster Saved My iPhone In A 60 MPH Accident

So I’m headed out the door for the REALLY early hot vinyasa yoga class in an attempt to start a long day off with an extra dose of peace, but I’m really not a morning person and shouldn’t be allowed to wake—much less drive a vehicle—at 5:30am.  Nonetheless, I make it to yoga and experience my desired helping of Zen, only to return home and find my 64-gig-4S-runs-my-life-and-makes-it-complete-iPhone—missing.

It’s difficult retracing my steps through the drowsy cloud that was my first 30 minutes of the day, stumbling into the garage, trying to remember the activity’s necessities: yoga mat, 32 ounces of water to replace those I’m about to lose, yogi towel, face towel, shower towel, toiletries—WAIT—is it possible that I put my iPhone on top of the car when I was shoveling all that stuff in the back seat?  Oh [word that I’m attempting to remove from my vernacular]!

But I’m not too awfully worried yet; there were several very slow turns within my community that would likely have sent the phone off the roof gently, maybe even landing in a soft pile of leaves (that haven’t yet fallen from the trees?).  Nope, nothing there.

A-hah!  I remember flipping a toggle switch when I set up my new device that would enable me to “Find My iPhone,” and thankfully found an app on my new iPad bearing the same name.  Hallelujah—the phone appears to be alive, still able to gasp out a GPS signal, and only 1.3 miles from home!  I spread my fingers on the high-retina display to zoom in vivid high definition to see the phone is indeed ON the Jones Falls Expressway—Interstate 83—one of the busiest thoroughfares in the Baltimore metro.  And it’s 8:00am.  On a Tuesday.

As I’m now driving in my car, I’m picturing Daniel Day Lewis in Last of the Mohicans yelling, “No matter what occurs, stay alive.  I will find you!”  But even if I could find it, I can’t imagine justifying a game of human Frogger to retrieve even my favorite genderless e-companion, Siri.  Then, as I approach the location, internally debating whether I should bother the Lord with requests for the safe return of this gadget on steroids, I see her (Siri definitely sounds like a girl to me)—sitting three inches from the white line, resting partially upright in the rumble strips, snug in the dorky holster I bought on Amazon for under $5 (shipping included—from Hong Kong).  I cradle her like a wounded bird into the passenger seat, afraid to remove her from the holster now obscuring what surely must be a fractured face.  I can’t look.  And then I do.  Somehow, amazingly, she survived—unscathed!  My only conclusion is that she landed on the dorkiest part of the dorky holster—the clip—and bounced into the rumble strips to await my brave retrieval.

The moral of this story?  I’m too attached to my iPhone.  Or, maybe I’m too attached to the $849.99 (per Verizon) it would cost to replace her—I mean, it.  I guess I could craft a moral that directs you to phone insurance—in which case, I’d probably tell you it’s a complete rip-off to buy it from Verizon or AT&T for $10 per month with a $169 deductible, and still a pretty penny to pay $99 plus a $50 deductible for Apple Care + or SquareTrade—but I think there’s something a bit more nuanced and meaningful here.

As one entirely capable of unworthily worshipping stuff and occasionally money, I believe we can justify attachments to iPhones and cash only to the point that they enhance our personal relationships (the ones with actual people we know and love).  They are, indeed, incredibly valuable tools in the pursuit of relationships, but it’s vital we don’t allow [insert material object here] to replace them.