Totally Worth the $30

For the past 6 years, I've had a basic little cell phone.  I didn't text, nor did I feel the need to text... until recently.  Suddenly, everyone said "text me" or asked me to text them.  Groan. Poo.  Sigh.  Growl.  We'll see.  Bah. Okay.

I upgraded my service.  Darling wants to keep his basic phone, so I left his phone alone and upgraded mine to a smartphone and signed on for the obligatory data/text package.  In the process, I added *gulp* $30 to our bill.  If you don't know already, let me tell you: I don't like spending money if I don't have to spend it.  The concept of "to text or not text," to spend money on an upgrade, has weighed on me.  Is this really worth it?  I wondered and wondered...

Until this morning.

Last week I volunteered to take a meal to a new mom today.  She said she lived "in the 'hood," but that didn't phase me.  No problem.  No sweat.  Make the meal, get it packed, pull out my nifty new smartphone and use Google maps to figure out how to get there.  Excellent.  Directions and map in hand, Little One and I head out.

We pull up to the house and the sidewalk doesn't exist.  No prob.  Little One and I get out with the food and head to the door.  The door isn't latched and looks... abused.  The house isn't locked.  The man who answers the door may or may not look slightly menacing.  Still, no sweat.  I smile, tell him congratulations on the new baby.  I hand the bagged meal over and proceed with Little One back to the car.  It's all good and we're on our way.  I open Little One's door.

And then... without warning...the hair on the back of my neck stands up.  I don't know what it is.  I don't know why I suddenly feel scared.  But I feel scared.  Scared.  Vulnerable.  I glance around and don't see any reason to be scared, but the feeling that something is really, desperately, wrong won't leave me.  My personal feeling is that the good Lord has given each of us an internal Holy Spirit alarm system and when we feel scared, uneasy, worried,  or alarmed, we had best listen to that still small voice and get out of there (be it a place, a relationship, or whatever.)

Naturally, Little One chooses this moment to pitch a fit about getting in the car.  She then proceeds to pitch a fit about getting in her car seat.  Then she proceeds to fuss about getting buckled.  "No!  I DO IT!" she screams.

My heart is pounding.  I try to breathe into it and settle myself.  It isn't working.  My usual tough-mama-bear sensibility has been replaced with I'm-no-tougher-than-Bambi's-mama-and-I-have-to-get-us-outta-here.  And I can't get Little One in her seat and buckled fast enough.

Finally, we are both buckled and I can drive.  And drive I do.  And get lost.  I rarely, if ever, get lost.  I'm lost. I still feel uneasy.  Really, really uneasy.  And find myself deep, deep in the 'hood.  My usually awesome-sense-of-direction is shot and my usually calm-in-the-face-of-danger persona has all but fled.  All I can think is I have to get us out of here, but I have no idea how to do it.

At the next stop sign, I snatch up the phone, plug our home address into Google maps and within seconds, I have a map out of the 'hood.  No shuffling around for the Mapsco.  No looking at street signs and trying to remember where I am in relation to the highway.  (Which is good, because as I just established, my reasoning skills are currently shaky.)  Thirty minutes and some "thank you, Lords" later, we are home.

And my revised thoughts on the smartphone?  Totally worth the $30.

~ G