Phenomenology

I walk into work, not fully awake, only just trying to clock in, when a woman is standing in front of me. “My phone is really hot!” And she sets it on the desk, face down, hands held out, palm up and pleading. 

“Oh no! I’m sorry to hear that.” I work at a hotel.

“I plugged it in last night and when I woke up just now it was really hot!” 

“Would you like me to find you a repair shop?” It’s before seven a.m. 

“My phone is broken!” 

“… Will you be needing to check out early? How is it that you need me to help you.” 

“I don’t want it to explode!” 

“I’m … I’m sure it won’t explode.” 

“What am I going to do! What am I supposed to do?”  

She has an important conference in Seattle in the evening, but can’t remember the name of the hotel, or the name of the conference. We have no business center, and she refuses to visit the library. I offer, again, to find the address of a repair place, but they all open after nine. 

“That’s too long.” She says it sadly. Too long for what, I don’t know. 

I print her directions home, to Spokane, five hours away, and let her borrow our phone to call her husband. She calls once; he doesn’t answer, and she leaves a sad little voicemail. And then she’s done it, convinced herself into leaving. 

It’s not yet light out, and raining, and she’s still just barely not crying. I wish her luck. I hope she made it home safely. 

I like my phone. I like having a camera with me, and music, and access to my boyfriend, and my friends, and my mom. As a woman, it makes me feel safer, when I’m out and about and alone. I don’t judge her, the woman at work. In the same situation, I would also be panicking. 

And Doesn’t that fucking Suck? 

If I’m unable to function in the absence of a resource, how beneficial can it be? Why have we made water again; why are the only phone numbers I have memorized 911 and my own? 

More than my general helplessness, now that I’ve become aware of it, is the anti-social quality. I struggle with spontaneity, in conversation. I had a heart attack the other evening, when a pair of Mormons knocked on my door. 

And when I’m lonely (it happens often) I put on something to watch. I have a podcast playing first thing in the morning, and while I’m driving, and running, and cooking, and showering.  

I put my art and my work and my life to the side, to engage instead in consumption. How many books have I read, or how many have I written? 

I don’t have a solution. 

But I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.