December 2017 – Mike's Life

A cracked Christmas miracle

Fun scientific fact: One of the longest measurements of time identified by scientists is that block between the time your phone falls out of your hand and the moment you retrieve it from the floor and flip it over to see if the screen is cracked.

I recently experienced this near-epoch when my phone, for inexplicable reasons, decided to leap from my hand at a restaurant. I watched my phone tumble toward the ground, time grinding to a halt. Seasons passed, species evolved, continents shifted.

And then boom. It hit. Face down. I had that pit in my stomach that I have felt before. Quite a few times, I have been quite relieved upon picking up the phone to find it perfectly fine. This was not one of those times.

As I surveyed the damage, a server walking past said, “Did it crack?” Apparently the look on my face said it all. “Oooh, it cracked…”

Indeed. I texted my wife. “And I just dropped my phone and cracked the screen. So yay.”

She responded, “See if you can find somewhere to get it fixed quick.”

I opted not to respond to that text because it was the worst advice ever given in the history of mankind, as I dropped my phone at 3 p.m. On a Sunday. On Christmas Eve. There was no hope for a quick fix.

On a whim, I went to Google. A nearby repair place popped up. Just to be able to prove to my wife that her advice was just awful, I called, waiting for the obvious voice mail that would no doubt say, “You broke your phone on Christmas Eve? Guess who’s outta luck? Hint: Look in the mirror.”

I did not get that however. Rather, I got Steven, who asked how he could help me. I told him I had just broken my phone screen and was hoping to get it fixed. To my surprise, he did not let out a sinister laugh. Rather, he asked me what kind of phone I had. I told him an iPhone. He said, “No, I mean, a 6, a 7…”

Ummmm….

Fortunately, I was there with my kids. I asked Steven to hang on a second, and asked my kids what kind of phone I had. “6S,” they said in bored unison, which tells me they may have had to tell me this before.

I told Steven. “Sure, bring it on in, and I can knock it out for you.”

I responded, “You mean, today?”

“Sure. Bring it on up.”

I headed to the store, fully expecting the bottom to drop out of this and find out there was some catch or something, and Steven would say, “Oh, THIS model of 6S costs $8,000 and won’t be ready until March.”

No such misfortune. He did a quick once-over on my phone and said, “Should have it ready for you by 5.”

I had about an hour to kill during the repair, at which point I learned two very important things:

I am very tethered to my phone on NFL Sundays, and found myself feeling very left out when unable to watch constant score updates
I have no idea what to do when in line at a Starbucks without a phone. My daughter was with me, and I would have considered having a conversation with her, but she was busy on her phone

I headed back around 5, and Steven had fixed the phone, good as new. He was nice as he could be about it, and sent me off with a Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas, indeed, Steven.

The phone shattering was an unfortunate detour on Christmas Eve, but I am glad it all got sorted out quickly. Granted, the moment I saw it was shattered, I was never in doubt that it would get fixed that very day…

Mike Gibbons was born and raised in Aiken, S.C. A graduate of the University of Alabama, he now lives in Mt. Pleasant. You can e-mail him at scmgibbons@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @StandardMike.

I was driving in the car with my wife and son recently, and I had the opportunity to partake in one of my favorite pastimes: Telling my kids about a world they will never know.

We were talking about an article I read that said young folks these days don’t gather socially, at least not in physical locations, as often as they used to.

Kids today, with their new-fangled technologies that connect them instantly.

My wife and I began regaling our son – which he no doubt was super appreciative of – of a time when we were young, carefree 20-somethings, without the burdens of children but also without the conveniences of smart phones.

For a good chunk of our early professional lives, my wife and I would join friends at a local watering hole after work several times a week to play bar trivia over cocktails. Even though I am a bit older now and seldom play anymore, I am aware that bar trivia is still a thing. But I would bet that few groups had as consistent run of attendance that our crew did for a good four or five years. Also, for those of you still playing trivia, please remember one of the cardinal rules of playing it: Even if you are just drinking water, you have to tip as if you are drinking beer and getting food. You are renting time and space from a server, so drop a fiver at the very least at the end of the evening.

At that point, my wife decided to go super “Kids today!” and said, “And there’s not destination television anymore! And what about Saturday morning cartoons!?!?!”

Let’s unpack these one by one.

My kids watch most of their TV on their phones or computers. And they do it whenever. Our daughter, who is 17, watched the entirety of “Friends” in a couple of weeks, a feat she accomplished by ignoring such pesky things as cleaning her room or sleeping.

Well, when “Friends” was airing live, we used to watch with a group of our friends, and we had to do it 30 minutes a time, every Thursday at 8. And it took us 10 years to knock that bad boy out. (We also did the same thing with “Melrose Place,” but I’m not going to recommend that show to her. Or admit that I watched every episode religiously. No one can prove I watched “90210,” either.)

As for Saturday morning cartoons, kids today, with their cartoons whenever. My wife and I were sharing with our son about how our Saturday mornings were the one day when we could see cartoons (with the exception of holiday prime time specials). We had about a three-hour block on Saturday mornings, and we liked it! Harumph.

I then took the helm and went on to share with him about how awesome Blockbuster Tuesday new releases were. “Independence Day” coming out and you’ve got a watch party scheduled? You better get to Blockbuster bright and early and make sure you get one of the 12 copies they were going to have available. If for some reason you couldn’t get there that early, you could hope and pray that some kind movie watcher had rented that morning and returned it the same day. I remember several times heading into my local Blockbuster, eyeing a new release in the return bin at the counter, and hovering like a vulture until I could catch the eye of the clerk and saying excitedly, “Can I get that copy of ‘There’s Something About Mary’ that just got returned!?!?!” That was my on-demand, my friend. (Oh, and fingers crossed that the person returning it had in, fact, had the decency to be kind and rewind.)

So the world is different now, and maybe that has led to a bit of a fracture in the traditional social structure. I’m not one to suggest the old ways are better or worse. Just different. Now, if you’ll excuse, my show starts in 10 minutes, and if I don’t see it now, I’ll have to wait until summer reruns.