One of the more bizarre "relationships" characteristic of the modern world is that involving one's phone. Consider, if you will, the following stories, triggering though they may be:
Scene 1: It is a relaxing setting of frantic sounds: reflections are everywhere – sunglasses glinting, the blue water flickering as it laps back and forth – and quick screams and splashes of joy jump from the tiled concrete, over the patter of wet feet. A friend, or son, or daughter, suddenly shouts out to you, "Check this out!" or "Look at me!" from the other side of the deep end. You reach for your phone, but the suntan lotion you slathered on earlier causes it to slip from your normally T-Rex grip. It rotates in slow motion as your eyes widen. Your other hand reaches out in desperation, but you can only watch through your polarized lenses as it drops through time and space. Just behind it, you glimpse the "no diving" sign at the pools edge, and notice a single tear fall from the camera lens. A cacophony of voices surround you a you stare at your phone covered in tortilla chips and hotdog buns, because no poolside concession stand ever sells rice. The video of an epic fail that would have garnered thousands of views and at least as many stupid jokes and witty burns in the comments section, or the milestone moment of childhood courage that would prove to be both a trophy of parenting and a family embarrassment, will never be.
Scene 2: You can't get over yourself for having finally experienced the fullness of the phrase "winter wonderland." You say it over and over. "WIN-ter. WON-der-land." Everything is white, and soft, and calm. You are ensconced in a December pastoral straight out of a 19th-century English romance novel. You pull off your favorite, locally-stitched mittens and pick up your phone. You click once. Once again. You click with frustration. You rub the screen against your chest as if shining an apple in story from Mark Twain. You shake it aggressively in hopes of knocking loose the mechanics like an air conditioner from the 1950s. You hold down multiple combinations of buttons. 3 seconds. 10 seconds. A single tear falls from the camera lens as you just watch the lone, empty battery icon pixelate as it disappears, leaving only your forlorn face reflected in the black mirror. Forget about those Victorian novels. You're in "The Shining."
Scene 3: Everything stops. You feel the grain in the restaurant's outdoor farm tables. The fragile surfaces of all kinds of drink glasses stand precariously from one end to the other. Tiny porcelain dishes with even tinier portions of food are interspersed throughout. You look up and scan the faces of you friends, and acquaintances soon to become friends. All of their heads are cocked back, caught mid-smile or at the edge of a laugh, sunglasses flaring. You love this, and want to keep loving it, So you reach for your phone, angled amongst the accessories of everything else that is cool. But, it's not cool. When your hand grasps it a flame surges through your fingertips. You panic – how to save something dying? You throw a napkin over it. Nothing. You wrap it in the tinfoil from your tacos. Nothing. You can't toss it into the bucket of ice, or splash a cold cocktail on it. It burns out. And you look up to see your friends dialing UBERs and trying to figure out how to divide up the check and tip. You stare down too, just soon enough to see a single tear falling from your phone's camera lens. "What have I done," you say to yourself. Then correct yourself, "What have we done."
Shot after shot, as we photographed the impeccably made products from Phoozy, we realized that they had thought of all the things that we had gone through, or never thought to think we might go through. Life is full of funny things, and none of them are fool proof. They can turn out weird, or awful, or amazing. Mostly, you won't know until you take a second look.
