It all started one dismal September day. There were flash flood warnings all across southeastern Wisconsin. The charcoal clouds hung low and heavy in the sky: a looming threat of what was to come or perhaps an indication--with the rumbles of thunder that rolled through the trees and the sporadic torrential down pours--that the heavens truly just wanted me to suffer that day.

Bad things come in threes. The first event was my car that, days prior, had made the most awful, grinding, clanking, dying-animal cries of desperation that made my mother gasp and cover her mouth kind of noise whenever I applied the brake. The second event was the storm. Though, I'd elect that it was not strictly a "bad thing" but rather an omen. Though the skies opened up and roads became lakes and cars were packed bumper to bumper for miles, this event acted simply as a
foretelling by the Fates. A foretelling of something so devastating to my upper middle class suburban lifestyle that it has become the subject of an article.

The third event--so bone chilling, so cruel and tortuous--was the paralysis of my iPhone. I noticed it first on that dismal September day in the car, in the pouring rain, on the way to pick up my car from the auto body shop.

There was a...

Glitch.

It's happened before; I didn't worry too much. The last couple of months had seen screens that had momentarily frozen and apps that opened on their own volition. I considered it a minor annoyance but nothing more. Nothing serious.

But ten seconds passed. Twenty. My finger swiped the screen in a confused, bordering on panicked attempt to get to my second page of apps or open music or settings or camera. Nothing happened. I pressed harder.

Faulty logic, I think. When the remote stops working we just press the buttons harder instead of changing the batteries. We turn the Playstation controller as if it was a steering wheel.

It was a lost cause.

Then, oh my god, it's working! I opened settings and wrote a little note in my notes app just to be sure. It had never lasted this long before. Never had my phone frozen like this before. It was like the sound of a grandfather clock ticking in the hall. You get so used to
the sound it's as though it's not even there anymore.

But then it stops. And you know something's...off...but it doesn't click right away because the sound has become a part of everything. And you don't realize how empty the hall is without the tick...tick...tick......of your phone in your hand because now you have nothing to look at when you're bored. Nothing to pull out of your pocket when there's an awkward silence or five minutes of downtime or you actually need to communicate with someone.

The paralysis was intermittent after that. I tried not to think about it. I figured that it would go away. By the time I arrived at my mother's house half an hour later, my phone was completely paralyzed, stricken with some fundamental, debilitating illness that I could not
singlehandedly cure.

By this time my panic had melted into resignation as I calmly told my mother. Perhaps I was not more concerned because I did not fully understand the consequences of these events. To the utter despair of my mother, I had already restarted my phone three times before she came home from work (the "have you tried turning it on and off again?" DIY solution to just about everything). Unanimously, we decided to take it in to the Apple store. However, it was nine o'clock at night. Fixing my phone was going to have to wait until the next night...maybe. The next available appointment Apple had was for four days after the night my phone became permanently paralyzed with brief bursts of normalcy versus normalcy with brief bursts of paralysis.

We just had to hope we could squeeze ourselves in the next day without an appointment, something they ask you if you have two seconds after entering. I wish I could say that a bolt of lightning struck and crashed when I went to bed that night to validate my dream of a rough sea of customers in the gray hours of twilight when the waves blend into the sky and you can't see the water until it's knocking you under
with the sharks. I am my phone, and I'm barely keeping my head above water and the Apple employee life raft is broken into pieces as it's swallowed by the sea.

But there was no lightning.

And, as I lay staring at my ceiling in the dark, I realize that there's no alarm clock either. Now that I have no phone I have no morning alarm.

My mother's the saving grace here:

My iPhone 4.

God knows why I kept it all this time. Well, now I know, too. It was for this very...blessèd...moment. I had recently finished backing up my phone onto iTunes that evening and, with my new alarm system, felt rather confident that tomorrow would go smoothly without a cellular device.

A snag occurred when I realized that I needed to actually be reachable
throughout the day. You don't realize how dependent you are on
technology until you have to go without it. My quick thinking and
seemingly foolproof solution was for my mother to email me if she
needed to get a hold of me.

I got some flack at school for this. "You sound like an old man."
"Only grandmas email." "Are you swapping crazy knitting stories?" Well
I'm sorry my poor phone is paralyzed, okay?

It wasn't until we were standing in the Apple store watching my new
phone get the sim card put in it that we had a divine light shining
down from the heavens, epiphanic moment of "wait, we could have used
Facebook messenger."

The next evening was a stressful one. We weren't able to go until
seven o'clock at night and the Apple store closed at nine. I had just
picked my sister up from school and had just gotten off the golf
course thirty minutes prior as well. I hadn't eaten since noon and was
starving.

Apparently my mother was as well because I was promptly asked, her
eyes beady and her lips pursed, "What are you doing!?" when I didn't
get on the escalator quickly enough.

After checking in with Apple, we were given "about thirty minutes" to
wander the mall before we had to be back for our--lucky
us!--appointment. I trailed slightly behind my mom as we made our way
to the food court, careful not to poke the hornet's nest.

We glanced at our options, my mom gave me twenty dollars, and I told
her that I was going back to look at Steak Escape. She followed me. At
the corner near the bathrooms we got stuck behind a mother and her two
toddlers. After trying to zigzag to get around them, my mom proceeds
to scoff and dart past them (which we had a good laugh about later).
When I saw the mom staring at us, I called my mom out on it, and she
told me to just "leave [her] alone" before marching back to Rocky
Rococo.

Needless to say, it was a stressful time for the three of us. One was
hangry, one was starving out of her mind, and one was paralyzed with
no hope of recovery.

My iPhone was on death's door.

Too soon and without dinner, we were called back to the Apple store.
We were quickly placed with an employee--contrary to my terrible
nightmare the previous evening. However, as if sensing that we had
signed the DNR, wrist watches on the ready, eager to sign the death
certificate, my weary phone pushed through and worked while the
employee was examining it.

(My mom made sure to say that the touch screen stopped working
intermittently in case my phone tried to trick the store into thinking
it was healthy. But we knew better, you sneaky little phone, you.)

So, when we were desperate for my phone to work it decided not to. For
what? It's own amusement? But now that we're serious, now that it's
been threatened with two big electromagnets set to wipe its data, it
decides that it wants to live?? Not anymore, iPhone. You had your
chance. So, defeated and tired and ready to be recycled, my phone
finally gave out and resigned itself to a serene rather than stubborn
paralysis. A peaceful end for a dear friend.

My hunger pains quickly overpowered the playing of taps in my head.
And once my new phone was in my hand, I had completely forgotten about
Old Blue.

Now, as I write this on my iPhone 4 while my new, less melodramatic
iPhone is restored from iTunes, I sit and hope that the lawsuit
against Apple's faulty touch screen for the iPhone 6 will bring
justice to the untimely death of a dear old friend.