I don’t know why I told the perky Verizon store guy about the TV. Until two months ago, our TV was your basic 1995 Philips-Magnavox 27inch model that we got for $25 from the church yard sale. It worked just fine, especially with the toothpick jammed into the broken on-off button that Bill rigged up. I guess I was trying to set the tone, of why we felt like dinosaurs in this ever-so-pristine, kiosk and a-la-carte world, where the sales man looked like he could (a) sell us a cell phone or (b) brew us a caramel latte for $6.75. Maybe I thought he’d give us a whopping discount. Bill and I were at the Verizon store this past week, looking decidedly out of place and feeling like utter newbies. We were tired of staying up till 2 a.m. researching cell phone plans and determined to put one in the hands of our high-schooler for Christmas. As it is, you practically have to mail in your firstborn child to get the rebate.

Speaking of whom… Ellie asked for a BB gun for her July birthday instead of a cell phone. It felt so Renegade “cute” that we went with it, solidifying our resolve that you don’t need a cell phone until you are driving. Bad call. That decision has resulted in a fall semester of all but sending smoke signals over the treetops to the local high school. Ellie is by no means swamped, but she attends a fair amount of after-school activities which require carpools and pick-up plans and–you guessed it, last minute changes. Aaahh, the raison d’etre of the cell phone: the last minute change. Due to the increase of those in my world, I started texting last month. On my Verizon LG flip phone that I bought at Target three years ago on clearance for $8.81 with $10 of pre-loaded minutes.

So, recently I received this text from a mom friend of mine that her son, Ellie’s classmate, has just missed a mandatory rehearsal in his strings class and did I know if Ellie missed it, too? They had an exam the class right before, and the mom was wondering–and worrying–that the teacher hadn’t let her musician go for the mandatory rehearsal. Now, this text, other than taking me a good 10 minutes to read it on a screen the size of a postage stamp and another 20 minutes to peck out my reply, has come in the middle of my day. I am for all intents and purposes, focused on my day. It may involve six loads of laundry and a trip to the grocery store. It may involve 75 8th grade English students reading Edgar Allan Poe. I have been subbing quite a bit lately. So I won’t say it was my first thought, but the radical immediacy of this text propelled this dim question to my brain: Ellie who? And then, this thought: if she has missed a class and thus missed a quiz in this class, won’t it be okay if I learn about that at 4:00 today? And won’t it be okay if the consequences can at least unfold this evening, or when the school calls, or–heaven forbid–in another four weeks when I get the report card? Like with this cell phone technology I can practically predate the event in happening. Bizarre. TMI, I say.

Kind of like all the Christmas decorations on clearance a week before Christmas!! Who needs the actual event, anyway? Used to be I would finally make it out of Chaos-land the second week of January when the kids went back to school and snap up a few Christmas clearance bargains. Now, I have this dread fear that when I finally venture back to the shops next week it will be bunnies and Easter chocolate on all the shelves. Honestly! It’s sad, that with life moving this quickly we actually need technology to speed it up. That we need recipes for English toffee when we’re in the far end of Richmond, or our email while attending a child’s school play. In our world, of course I would find it handy to Google directions when we’re half lost or communicate a plan that we were too indecisive to commit to while still near a landline. By now, of course, the Verizon guy is weary of my moralizing diatribe and is looking at me like, Lady–really? Did you have to go into all that about the Christmas decorations?

The rest of us, we are not so connected, though things move quickly at the Burk Motel. I blinked, and William is in the third grade, with bed-head, a crooked grin, and the knees blown out of his jeans, going out for the bus in a flurry of papers and unpacked items. He is taking a minimalist approach to school so as to afford more time and energy for his true calling: life. When I send him outside to play I say things like, “Make sure you stay on the property” and “Please play with toys that exist,” meaning no putting a 40-foot extension ladder up against a sapling the diameter of my thumb to study the bird’s nest at the top of it, no climbing on the roof and jumping off (last week’s adventure), no riding your bike down the front brick steps of the house–that sort of thing. His electronics include remote-controlled cars (LOVE!) and building with Dad (YIKES!) a homemade spot welder out of an old microwave.

Sophie is a sweet, moody, super capable seventh-grader, alternating her charm with the vaporizing death-glance of the Adolescent. But I take courage. Even without technology, she is demonstrating serious life-ready skills. Recently, on a rare occasion, she forgot a notebook for a mandatory notebook check in Language Arts. I can almost feel the sick panic and impending doom our very serious, studious, and careful child would have felt as the clock ticked toward the last block of the day. She tried to text me on a friend’s phone. She asked the school secretary to call the school where I was subbing. I was, once again, involved in my day which happened to involve three blocks of 8th grade Language Arts at a different middle school. So, dear Soph was on her own. Rather than let a hectic Christmas pace and forgetfulness get the better of her, rather than take the zero, and unable to conform the world to her needs with a tiny electronic device costing nearly two-weeks’ worth of groceries tucked in the back pocket of her skinny jeans, she improvised! She sat through her 90-minute history block and recreated–page by page– her language arts journal for the past two weeks, got the A and went on her merry way! Some may call this dishonest. She is a straight-A student with a level of care and conscientiousness well beyond her years, and so I am choosing to call it resourceful.

We all of us unplugged for our recent Thanksgiving vacation. The plan wasn’t well-received, I can say that. And as the little three-day time of bliss approached–a reservation in a 1940s cinder block cabin built by the Army Corps of Engineers that I had booked at Westmoreland State Park–the family alternately rebelled. Ellie was adamant. I’m not going. I’m NOT going. She went. Bill looked at me a little funny when the weather forecast shifted to 35 and raining. All were unprepared for the absence of TV, not even the old Magnavox special. But you know what? We played cards. We played charades. We slept late. We hiked. We went down on the freezing cold beach and dug in the bright sun for prehistoric sharks’ teeth. We shared the chores of the kitchen. William washed the dishes throughout the weekend! We went geo-caching for the first time. And midway through the geo-caching session, standing around in the sleet and freezing rain while the kids poked around in the leaves for a hidden Tupperware containing busted McDonald toys, I realized that the real treasure was right there in front of me: time with my family. Those are the best coordinates, after all.

Wishing you an unplugged, all-in Christmas with the ones you love!

P. S. Here is the tagline on my email, which is obnoxious and I will remove it (just as soon as Sophie shows me how!)  Sent from my 2007 Dell Studio laptop or, for my particularly with-it friends: Sent from an obsolete laptop in my dirty old kitchen