About 10 years ago, I was in the car with my mom at a Wendy's Drive-Thru. We were about the third car in line to order when suddenly a man approached my mother's window. He looked relatively harmless but, we're from Philly, so of course we were on guard.
"Hi, My name is Such-and-Such, I'm from So-and-Such area and I have somehow lost my wallet and have no way of getting home. I can catch this and that train, and this and that bus. All I'm asking is if you can spare a few dollars to help me out. I'm not on any drugs, I'm just in a real bad situation."
"Isn't there someone you can call?" My mother asked. She seemed genuinely concerned. I of course, knew better. In reality it is more of a probe into his story to gauge if this could possibly be true.
"No, I live alone and I don't have a cell-phone to call anyone. I used a pay phone to call some friends, but I didn't get an answer. That was the last few cents I had in my pocket."
My Mom, looked off into the distance, thinking of what else she could say. "Why don't you go inside this restaurant and ask them if you can use their phone to call someone else who might be home. I'm sure that when they hear your story, they would let you use their phone."
He looked at my mom as if she was a genius. "That's a great idea. Thank you," he said with a grateful grin. He stood up straight and instead of heading for the entrance to the Wendy's, he stepped over to the car now waiting behind us.
"I guess he really is a crackhead after all", I said.
"Yep," she said. "I think I'm going to get a number one."
So imagine today losing your wallet. You have no cash and your cell-phone battery is dead. What would you do? You would imagine that you would do what my mother suggested to the guy in the Wendy's Drive-Thru. Except, these days we don't really know too many of our contacts information off-hand. Our Phone knows it. But your phone is dead. Or you lost it somewhere. Or some punk just ran past and snatched it right out of your hand while you were waiting on a subway platform. Either way, how many people could you call straight from the dialer? When we call people from our phones, we look at the name of the person, not the number associated with it.
Now, a lot of us have over 50 contacts stored in our phones. Of course we don't talk to all those people everyday or hardly ever. But we keep their number just in case we need it. Well, you called all the numbers you have memorized and all you got was a bunch of voicemails. People tend to not answer phone numbers they don't recognize. The thing is, we don't recognize numbers that have been in our contacts all along. What's the difference?
This all being part of our reliance on technology to do things for us that we should do for ourselves... Somewhat. I mean, I'm not about to memorize 25 different phone numbers. However, we should know more than just a few. You never know when your brain will actually have to come through in a clutch situation. If you get lost, you use maps on your phone. If you are looking for a place to eat, you look it up on your phone. If you can't remember things you are suppose to do for that day, you store it in your phone using some app. Hey, there is nothing wrong with using these things. I know I use them every stinking day. We just have to know where to draw the line.
Some things we should just know. Phones can break. Phones and get lost. Phones can get stolen. Now, you can lose your mind, but I bet you would still remember your uncle's phone number even if you went nuts.
So for the next week, I plan to dial each person's number rather than just scroll through my contacts. That way some of these number might actually stick in my brain. It's quite possible you will find me leaned over into a car window explaining how I miraculously lost my wallet, cash and cell-phone at the same dang time, in a Wendy's Drive-through.
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