My cherry red cell phone is dying a slow and cancerous death.
First, I dropped it while standing in line at Target™ last October. I said a very bad word out loud when I picked it up and saw this:
Then, a few months later, the battery began pittering out, dying more quickly between charges with every passing day.
And now the sliver part of the middle button has fallen off:
Nice.
My contract for this particular phone is almost up, which means I’m allowed to get a brand new phone—any one I want—free of charge. Poor Kyle has been nagging me to start looking at new phones for the past couple of months, because this sort of thing excites him more than me in my—never mind. But you get what I’m saying, right? The man loves technological gadgetry.
But here’s the thing: My cherry red cell phone still works. Anyone who has watched the entire 20-minute Story of Stuff documentary knows that this is all a ploy, cleverly crafted by The Man and his cohorts, to compel me to stay on top of the current fads.
For a little while, I was tempted by Poor Kyle’s grand talk of newer, shinier phones within my reach. There were a few days when I allowed myself to entertain the idea of getting a new phone even though my current phone works just fine. I could picture it: Me with my new phone at the mall, holding a Coach™ bag and wearing skinny jeans with a tunic cinched up by a wide belt. I looked beautiful in my daydream—and trendy, too. Everyone wanted to be me. Everyone waited until I passed to whisper to their friend, “Wow, look at her—she’s incredible! And beautiful. She is the epitome of all things graceful.”
All because of my new phone.
Umm…reality check, please. Seriously? Did I actually allow myself to be suckered in to the ridiculous notion that stuff—STUFF!—is going to change who I am as a person? That because of the stuff I do or don’t have, or the clothes I do or don’t wear (but then, I almost always wear clothes, so never mind), people will view me as a better or worse person? If that’s true, then people are pretty lame.
I liked what Annie Leonard said in the Story of Stuff, on the subject of this pop culture mindset {emphasis added}:
“Our current paradigm dictates that more stuff is better, that infinite economic growth is desirable and possible, and that pollution is the price of progress. To really turn things around, we need to nurture a different paradigm based on the values of sustainability, justice, health, and community.
“What we really need to chuck is that old-school throw-away mindset.”
I was also inspired by my blog-friend Anna, who recently wrote about her own cell phone’s lengthy demise (she held onto hers for quite a lot longer than the old me ever would have):
“I have a really hard time buying something I don’t need, which is most everything I buy. We need food, but do we need that much and that kind? No, not really. We need clothes, but do we need all those clothes? Definitely not.“…A little piece of me is still accepting the fact that my old phone still works but I’m not using it. In fact, for a second I considered using my old phone until it completely broke. I hate getting rid of things that still work, I feel so wasteful. I like to wear things to death, and if I upgrade, it’s because something is no longer usable, not just because I can and not just because I want to.”
