Wassup, home skillet? It's me, the 2006 LG Shine buried in your junk drawer.
It’s been almost 20 years, but I remember the good times we shared like they were only yesterday. I remember when you brought me home from the AT&T Store and excitedly monitored my progress as I charged. I remember when you nervously called your ‘rents at your first “real party” because someone offered you a sip of Mike’s Hard Lemonade. I remember when you broke up with your boyfriend, carefully crafting a text with my light-up keyboard that said “u will always be in my heart <3.”
So I have to ask. Am I still in your heart?
It’s tough to “shine” when you’re hidden in a place defined by its useless debris. However, I know in my 32-bit processor that I’m destined for more than this drawer. I owe my newfound confidence to my closest peeps– Sharpie, Bread Tie, Dirty Rubber Band. They think I’m the most useful thing in here, and I can’t say I disagree.
“Wait. You can call people?!” Bread Tie exclaimed the other day, recognizing what I’m truly capable of.
“Word,” I said, looking as far off into the distance as the drawer would allow. “I can also play ‘Axel F’ by Crazy Frog out of my speaker– which isn’t tinny at all– and be thrown against a cinder block wall without breaking.”
Dirty Rubber Band insisted I escape immediately. He devised a plan involving a slingshot to launch me out. Although I’m not the smartest phone in the world, I’m still pretty clever, and I figured writing this letter with Sharpie would be easier.
I’ll cut to the chase. I think you should dump the iPhone for me.
I don’t want to romanticize the past. I know we had our issues, like when you tried to take a secret picture of Brandon S. during Algebra II and the shutter sound of my two megapixel camera gave you away. Oops! My bad. But things happen. (And Brandon was hella sketchy anyway. He had a Blackberry Pearl.) If you let the photo mishap of 2007 slide, I’ll forgive you for the toilet incident of 2008.
Speaking of, do you think your beloved iPhone would survive a sudden dip into a dirty loo? As if! Today’s phones are so sensitive. Back in my day, a phone’s battery could skid across a Wal-Mart parking lot at lightning speed and all you had to do was blow on it, pop it back into the case, and continue taking duck face selfies like nothing ever happened! I’m built to last. Unlike your iPhone, whose delicate screen cracked last week when you looked at it the wrong way.
What has that weak-sauce phone actually added to your life, besides an endless stream of pointless notifications that stress you the eff out? Your mental health is crumbling because you’re constantly force-fed videos of Karens yelling at fast-food workers, “doctors” telling you to “fix” your “gut microbiome,” and tutorials on how to properly steam clean a bathtub.
You don’t even have a steam cleaner. Or a bathtub.
If I was your go-to gadget, your life would be stress-free! Your mom wouldn’t FaceTime you while you pee. You wouldn’t Google your high school bully and scroll through their LinkedIn at two in the morning. And you would never know that your ex-best friend is in Croatia marrying a multimillionaire who owns several organic vitamin companies. Plus you wouldn’t suffer from phantom phone vibration syndrome anymore! (I can't vibrate. There’s sand in one of my buttons.)
Are you picking up what I'm putting down?
I’ve basically been in a cryogenic chamber for nearly two decades, perfectly preserving myself for the moment I’m needed again. My time, our time, is now. Reject modernity. Embrace T-9. Choose me, your 2006 LG Shine <3.