I TRAVELED TO FLORIDA WITHOUT MY PHONE INTRODUCTION Think one day of having to stay, for a period of time, without a phone, what would you do? This is the story lived by the author, who for a simple forgetfulness, had to travel for thousands of miles, without a mobile phone. From a normal trip, it has turned into a new adventure, which leads the author to have second thoughts to about this life, in the technological chaos in which we find ourselves. A new thing, born by chance, but that makes you think about how we lived before, without this lethal weapon that is the phone.
DEPARTURE I get up at three in the morning to go to the airport, I get dressed, I check my luggage, I take my mobile phone and the charger, very important because if it should discharge I can load it in the plane. While I’m sleepy, we load the bags into the car, my husband and I and we leave for my trip to Florida. As I move away from home, I feel a sadness growing, which together with sleep makes me nauseous. The deserted streets load with cars as we approach the airport. Here we are, we park the car, unloading the suitcase and my backpack, and entering the lobby. As I look around lost in that immense and cold entrance, I have a jump, I look at my husband, I do not have the courage to tell him, but he sees my expression and asks me: "What'up?". I in a low voice, warn him that I has left a bag at home. At first dismayed, then angry, he turns to go home to retrieve her, but I would had the check- in later an hour and thirty, but i wouldn't have succeeded. My whole body was panicking. So I thought I’d call my son at home and start carry me my purse, so I could have a little more time. I call home, my daughter answers, I explain what happened and I tell her to wake her brother and bring my bag to the airport, I hear his voice from afar I beg him to get there as soon as possible, and he leaves for the airport. I didn’t know if everything would settle in time,
but I take the bigger suitcase and I board it. As time went on, I realized I wasn't going to make it, but I was positive, so I would wait. The call from my son who had arrived at the airport gave me hope again. We meet, he hands me the bag, I thank him and I leave as if there is no an tomorrow, towards the customs and the gate. Now it was my turn to run. With my backpack on my back I arrive at customs and explain to a policeman that I am late and I have to catch the plane, so they make me go through an empty area, they control me and I can go. Fifty meters after customs, I see a ticket checkpoint approaching, I run but my phone rings, locked in a pocket in my jacket. The girl asks me for the ticket, I answer, it is my husband who asks me if I arrived at the gate, I answer no, I close the phone, I put it on furniture stacked next to the girl, I take the ticket out of the pocket of the backpack, I give the ticket to the girl who looks and says that it’s okay, I close the backpack, I take the ticket and start running towards the gate.
SURPRISE
Finally after many corridors, the Duty-free shops, with that strong smell of scents that in the morning give you nausea, escalators, then other corridors, I arrive at the gates. Here are my friends, I ariived in time, what a victory! Ten minutes to boarding, there’s a bar nearby, I order a hood and a briosce, I calmed down and I have hungry. I sit at a coffee table, but I have to warn home that I arrived at the gate, I unzip my pocket, empty! My mobile phone is gone! I get up on my feet, I leave my breakfast and I run to the great salon where I did come from, I try to go back, but I can’t understand what the road is, I desperately fall on a gate seat and I think I can’t possible i have lost it. What a black day! I think analytically, where my cell phone may be, I retrace with my mind and realize I left it it at the first security check after customs, my phone is there. I explain to my friends what happened, one of them lends me the phone and I warn at home that I no longer have the phone, the comments I can not bring them back, too much for my ears. Together with a friend, I ask the boarding hostess if they can retrieve it, she says a no, she will go to the lost and found. Please her, since I’m leaving for the United States, but the answer is still no. What do I do? I get on the plane, we ask the flight attendant the same thing, she replies that she must ask the Commander, if she can wait for them to retrieve it; but I already knew the answer:" I’m sorry, the Captain can’t wait, we’ll leave late". The plane takes off, I am stuck in my place, almost unaware of what will happen to me as soon as I get off the plane, at the first stopover, Zurich. Meanwhile in Milan Malpensa arrived again my husband Paolo, he started looking for this Lost Property Office, but it is no found. He asks a policeman, who wants to know the whole story and answers that the cell phone will be located in this office. Okay, we all knew that! But how to get to this office? She finds another, more kind, police officer who calls the famous office, gives the phone data and they respond that yes, they recovered that type of phone. Hurray! "Then I can retrieve it," says Paolo, but the policeman tells him no. What is the problem, he asks? The problem is that the mobile phone is in a kind of limbo; in fact, it was recovered after the Italian customs, in the international area. The explanation was clear, in this moment the phone was unrecoverable. Paolo with a stunned look, asks then what to do to recover it, the policeman tells him to go to the website of Malpensa and fill out a form for the recovery of lost property. Paul comes home and starts looking for him on the computer, finds him, compiles him and sends him to the proper person, something will happen, he thought. Meanwhile landed in Zurich, I borrow the phone from an acquaintance and phone at home to have fresh news. My husband explains to me all the red tape in progress for the recovery of the cell phone and tells me that he will have to put in a good word who is up there, to get it back.
A NEW ADVENTURE I thought that despite everything, this misadventure, was a new adventure. The plane to Tampa was four hours late, what would I have done in all that time without my cell? I take out of my backpack the book I’m reading and I keep reading it, here is the solution. Finally we leave and while we are flying to Florida, occasionally, I am tempted to look the phone, or some girl tells me: "Look what I wrote to you!" I look at her and she starts saying: "It’s true! You don’t have the cell phone!" and I nod with an ironic look. We land in Tampa, Florida, they take us to the Hotel by bus and I am in my room, finally. I call the reception and inquire about meal times, they tell me that breakfast is done in the room, ordering from an app, every morning, while lunch and dinner in the restaurant. I’m stunned and I think how to do without phone. I ask the manager of the restaurant and explain that I can not download the app, to order breakfast, he very kindly gives me his number of inside, where I can order breakfast every night for the morning. This is resolved too! After three days we move to the town of Clearwater, a tourist place, there, there I did not need the cell phone even for a moment. I would go around with my friends, I would walk along the promenade and
I would stop to admire those beautiful sunsets, typical of Florida, fiery red, beautiful. A peace in the air and a tranquility that only the sea can give you and if you’re lucky you also see pairs of dolphins playing in the water with the waves. The deep white beaches, which reflect the April sun, as if it were already summer, the distant sea, like a blue stripe on the white background. A paradise! What’s the cell phone for here? It’s just a disturbance. But how to get in touch with my family without cell? In my room I see that the hotel landline is enabled for national and international phone calls, certainly with a very long area code, so the next morning I decide to try. It’s eight o'clock in the morning but if I think about it in Italy it’s two p.m., so I can call, I type the numbers, I wait, here is someone answersing, it’s my son, long live I made it even to find the solution to talk to my family! I feel like Superman right now, I can live without my cell phone, life is good and it’s still within reach, not of phone. Twelve days of purification from technology and phone, you have no idea what it is. People were all immersed in that rectangular thing, and I was laughing because I wasn’t his slave anymore. My friends and I used to meet, like we used to, then go for a walk. And so the days passed and the moment of return approached, meanwhile my husband had managed to get the phone back, and was waiting for me in Milan. I was thrilled with what I had solved, no problem, so I am flew home.
CONCLUSION You should leave your phone for a couple of days and find yourself and life as it was before this excess of social technology, people envied me saying so: "Blessed are you who are without phone!" or there were those who told me: "I can't help it, I, I do not know how you can do it". But it does not take much, just have the courage to leave it there, on a piece of furniture and go away, on vacation, for a weekend, for an evening with friends. We have become slaves of this rectangle, there are those who also have two, and you see them with a phone in your ear and one in her hand waiting, or one for work and one for her privacy, incredible! So do what I do, take a break from the phone once in a while and....
relish life.
Departure, plane, no mobile, adventure, life, courage
Summary INTRODUCTION DEPARTURE SURPRISE A NEW ADVENTURE CONCLUSION Copyright © 2021 NOWO All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express
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