R.I.P. Sidekick

A few years back my boyfriend at the time figured out how to stay in constant contact with me without ever really communicating-- He bought me a Sidekick. We chatted constantly. While he was in meetings… playing Madden… on a DATE… umm yea, you get the point. It afforded us a way to be close while we lived on opposite sides of the country. It wasn’t until much later in the relationship that I started to realize that maybe it wasn’t such a good thing. Sure, I heard from him all the time but I didn’t talk to him as much as I used to. And the fact that he could live a double life and I was none the wiser—well that was a bit of a problem too. But even when that relationship finally met it’s demise, my dependence on my Sidekick stayed strong. Needless to say, my life has never been the same.

Because I don’t actually like to “talk” on the thing, I have kept two phones for the last few years—a talking phone and a texting/IM’ing/email phone. And you could pretty much guarantee that I would never answer the talking phone when you called because I didn’t pay any attention to that one and am a horrible phone person, but text me and you would get an instant reply. I will be the first to admit that I am far too unimportant to require two phones but I felt comfortable with the situation and I refused to change. Lately though, I had become quite frustrated. You see the Sidekick is mainly a gimmick phone. There are way better phones out there that do the things I’m interested in far better, but sidekicks found their niche and ran with it and I had gladly hopped on board and was refusing to jump ship. I was the epitome of loyalty. Until last week…

The darn thing broke AGAIN! Imagine. The dismay! Distress! Shock! Panic! Dread! Alarm! Oh how will I ever survive??!!! (btw…if you have texted me in the past week and received no response, I was NOT ignoring you.) I figured it was time for me to once and for all break the bond between my sidekick and I. I was determined to finally merge my life into one single phone that would do everything I could possibly want and get rid of an extra phone bill in the process. It took me a minute to figure out what I really wanted and also to figure out a way to obtain it without selling my left kidney to purchase it, but I am proud to announce that I am now an official member of the ‘CrackBerry’ club. I am going to have to let go of the phone number I’ve had since I was 19 and the excellent relationship I’ve built with Sprint, but it’s for a worthy cause. I can now travel the world and email to my hearts delight as well as PIN all my other fellow blackberry users at no charge! (This is only important to track folks.)

In closing, I’d just like to thank the Sidekick for being a great companion for all these years. Unfortunately it’s time for me to move on to bigger and more addictive things but you will always have a special place in my heart.