Drat! After spending my entire life being non-mobile (well at least as long as these portable things have been available that is), meaning no cell phone, no PDA, no Smartphone, no netbook–no nothing, I’m finally coming to the point where I’m beginning to regret it. I don’t even own a Trac Phone for heavens sake. And now I’m headed for surgery…

…in Boston…

…Massachusetts…

…nearly 4 hours away…

…for a week or more.

In the past this didn’t really concern me since I could always throw $10.00 on a phone card and use that whenever I needed it–for trips like this one for example. Then during the last couple of trips to the VA I found  that my phone cards weren’t lasting me as long as they used to. I knew I wasn’t using the cards any longer than I usually did, it just became increasingly apparent that a significant portion of my minutes were somehow leaking out of the card and onto the floor when I wasn’t looking. Turns out that where my “paid minutes” to “actual minutes used” ratio used to be approx. 1.35623 to 1.0, now they were more like an average of 5 to 1 so it became clear to me that I might as well be flushing most of that $10.00 right down the toilet instead of through the phone lines.

Be that as it may, I’m now finding myself wishing that some kind stranger (friend, relative, whatever) would suddenly knock on the door and offer me their spare cell phone (“don’t worry about the minutes…glad to do it”) and/or perhaps one of those ultra mobile PC things like that Asus Eee they keep yapping about (“take this too so you can blog while you’re completely blotto on morphine”). But alas, no one has showed up at the door so far with gifts of mobility so I guess I’ll just have to wing it.

I swear, as soon as I recover from surgery…

…and if it works like we hope it will…

…and I become employed again…

…and get the bills caught up

…and get some money put into the bank…

…I’m going to get me one of those damn cell phones so I won’t have to worry about this ever again. In the meantime, where did I leave that old walkie-talkie? Maybe I’ll hit a good skip signal.