What Would We Do...Without Cellphones?

 I was looking through my camera roll and I came across a random photo I took when I was at The Home Depot last week. At first, I did not remember why I took it--I take a lot of pictures for possible blog post topics. So, I wasn't sure about this photo of Dish Packing Kits. Was I going to write about the joys of packing (like I did yesterday), or how it's interesting that they market packing kits in packing kits?

Then, it hit me...I took this picture because I was unsure, unsure of whether or not this was the exact item I had been sent to fetch. Turns out, it was. Then I realized just how important cellphones are in our modern society. Sure, they save lives and record daily events, but they do other important things, too.

Like, help a husband remember what he was supposed to buy.

Using my grandpa voice (I'm not a grandpa, but many my age and younger are...), I remember back in the day when ,if you didn't have a list and things written on that list, you relied solely on memory. And, as we all know, shinny things can be distracting and memory pays the price. I thought back on many a time I forgot what I was supposed to get, bought what I thought I was supposed to get, then returned to the store to purchase what I was supposed to get the first time.

Modern technology comes with a price--more hectic lives, relying on phones for everything, but it also helps out a husband when he's sent to The Home Depot for dish packing kits and he makes sure it's the right thing before he even leaves the parking lot.

A Touch Of Normalcy...At The Home Depot

 You've seen them, and even though you may think they're gauche, obnoxious, or tacky, you've seen them. They appear before holidays like Christmas and Halloween.

They're those inflatables people have in their front yards.

I can't think of other holidays, other than Halloween and Christmas that have inflatables, but I'm sure you can find them to celebrate Valentine's Day, Independence Day, maybe even Arbor Day (if that's a thing anymore...). Point is, if someone will buy it, someone will make it.

It's the American way.

The problem is, there's not a lot of things that make you feel like celebrating anymore. It seems like we're constantly being beat up by others and by ourselves. It feels like--to me--there are forces out there trying to make us feel this way, to feel defeated, to feel exhausted, to feel down.

So, when my wife and I entered The Home Depot last week to see if they had any generators because our power had been out for several day and we were trying to save two fridges of food (they didn't have any, by the way--we were hours late...), we looked up and saw something that made us feel like celebrating, made us--temporarily--forget all the crap we're getting shoveled upon our heads day after day.

We saw those big inflatables.

And they were fricking cool!

Like everyone else, we have no idea what Halloween will be like this year. I don't think many thought we'd even have to worry about Halloween when all this hit the fan back in March. But, here we are--six weeks out. Sure, the inflatables are expensive, but for us on that day without power, they represented a touch of normalcy in an incredibly abnormal world.

We didn't buy one (or several...). After all, we'd just have to put it on a moving truck and cart it north with everything else, and even if we did want to rush home and blow it up, we'd have had to string an extension cord from our neighbor's house to do it. Still...it might have been worth it, even at that, to feel good about something once again.