Road Warrior's Lament, ET, iPhone and the Summer of Love

You can't surf more than a couple of minutes without finding some chatter about the iPhone. I have to admit, that I'm one of those people who is drooling to have one. I'm a Boomer obsessed with technology that I don't understand. Even though I have a crackberry (blackberry) and am reasonably addicted, I want more. I want that touchscreen and to be able to follow any whim, any desire and have the information right at my fingertips.

As a road warrior (perhaps not as many as most, but I spend about 25% of my time on the road), you'd think I'd have travel down to an art. Well...I kinda, sorta do. But I have NO sense of direction. HATE renting a car in any city, even when it makes better economic sense. I'll confess. I get lost. I don't know where to go to eat. I can never find my destination. I can NEVER find my way back to the hotel. (I can't even find my way back to the parking lot to find my rental car from whatever the best mall might be in that particular city.)


I'm navigationally challenged -- I travel with a compass, pre-printed driving routes, have google mobile programmed into my blackberry, and keep a list of local people that I can call up any time of day or night to direct me to my destination.


There was one commercial for the iPhone that sold me on the spot. I don't remember the exact sequence, but it was something like this: X gets a phone call and decides to go out for dinner. The iPhoner then researches sushi (or Greek?), calls for a reservation from the webpage, gets driving directions and then (I think?) starts to play some music or watch a video clip as they head out.

Whatever it was, it filled me with an unstoppable desire to get one! While there is no way I'll be standing in long lines, or shelling out the big bucks to get one right now, nonetheless, a funny thing did happen.

I was reading an article about the iPhone on a relatively new blog, Over 50 Now . And I had a reaction. It wasn't quite drooling. It was...yes...it was an ET moment. Do you remember ET intoning, "ET...Go Home. ET...Go Home." Well, my head started repeating, "Wendy...iPhone. Wendy...iPhone." I couldn't shake it. And I realized something. I had romanticized a summer of love, starting off with thinking about fireworks on the 4th of July.

But that is NOT what my summer of love is really going to be about for me. It is going to be about my unrequited desire for an iPhone. "Wendy...iPhone."

Really. I have got to get a grip!