iNeeds

Fudgesicle Junkie and I were catching up one week while he was completing his move from “country backwater” back into a metropolitan city. It’d been awhile since he’d lived in the city and having spent the better part of a year or so out if it, there was some acclimating to do. Especially in the technology department.

Fudgesicle Junkie: I believe that I may be in love...my new computer is so beautiful. I really love her!

Lily: <---- Cheating on Lenny with her laptop *chuckles*

Fudgesicle Junkie: Keep your laptop away from mine! They'll have an affair and before you know it there will be the pitter patter of an unwanted palm pilot!

Lily: Palm pilots are sooooo passé. It'll be an iPod or something!

Fudgesicle Junkie: I know. But I live in the City now, the financial district. F**king City Boys everywhere, with "unnatural" attachments to their personal electronics!

This past Monday, I was getting ready to go to work. I gathered my purse, my gym bag, and walked out of the house to my car. Settling into the driver’s seat, I realized that I left my iPod Mini back in the house. I got out of the car, unlocked the back gate, opened up the arcadia door, and retrieved the iPod. Locked the house, redid the gate. Got back in the car, strapped in, started the engine.

Then I realized I left my cell phone on the dining table. Affects huge sigh. Repeats process.

Where was my jump drive case? Slams head into steering wheel.

It was then I recalled my conversation with FJ. The “unnatural” attachment to personal electronics isn’t limited to those wacky “City Boys,” my friends. It is everyone!

Cell phones. Gameboy Advanced. MP3 players. Laptops. Portable DVD players. Digital cameras. Satellite radio units. PSPs. Seriously, think about all the gadgets and gizmos that you have involved in your life. I bet they all share the same characteristics. It’s probably small enough to fit in your pocket, it’s highly portable, and/or it runs on a battery for a good amount of time. And apparently, I need them all to make my day work right.

Damn that scares the crap out of me! Four or five years ago, I know I didn’t need all this stuff. I was happy when we got our first lap top…which actually stayed on the desk. My cell phone was never turned on for 24-hours straight. Now, I worry when the battery runs out. OMG! What if I miss a call?!?! It took every ounce of strength in me to leave my laptop at home on a weekend getaway trip last month! And, I’ve been known to say out loud a few times that I’d DIE if I ever lost my iPod.

Hi, I’m Lily White. (Hi Lily!) I am an electronics junkie.

Humans are susceptible to addiction by nature. If that weren’t true, we wouldn’t have drug and alcohol abuse. So, is it any wonder with all the advertising and peer pressure (YES, I said PEER PRESSURE) to have the latest that technology has to offer, that most of us are trading up for the better laptops every year? As fast as new models come out – there we are snapping them up in our hot little hands.

It doesn’t help that we’ve made multi-tasking a way of life either. Remember when a cell phone was JUST A PORTABLE PHONE? Yesterday, one of the account executives at work let me hold his Trio. Not only is it a phone, the Trio is a camera, computer, music player, text messenger, organizer, and personal chef (just kidding). No one sports talk show host, Jim Rome, once referred to his Blackberry as a “Crackberry.” (“I can stop whenever I want to, Clones!”)

Gah! Where does this electronic madness end? I’ve come to the conclusion that I should start by figuring out what I really need/love on a daily basis and NOT what I can fit in my purse.

A jump drive, yes. Three jump drives…not so much. It’s perfectly acceptable to carry my “old school” 4GB iPod with me wherever I go – music makes my world go round. But I am definitely going to pause at buying the 60GB version of the iPod…that’s just way too much multi-tasking for me. The Earth will not shatter if I leave my laptop at home while away. It just means more e-mail when I get back…and really, that’s fine with me. See? I can control this problem! I can overcome my electronics addiction.

Now, if you’ll excuse me…I need to spend some quality time with my TiVo.

What? You expect me to go COLD TURKEY?!?!