Sunday, October 24, 2010

Forgetfulness and several reminders

As I walk through several hundred unread posts on my Reader on a daily basis, it failed to cross my mind that I had a registered domain for blogging.  It waited endlessly, and the ravages of time had brought to it an almost antediluvian look, and, at a time when web 2.0 was carrying along with it a rapid approach, leaving everything behind in obscurity.  At long last, at the stroke of the hour that had no impressible significance, I decided that the blog had been dormant enough.

We(read my wife and I) finally joined the gamut of smartphone holders.  The astronomical data rate plans prevented us from getting one earlier, and the procrastination (my friends can vouch for that) to switch to one that had all the advantages of the cloud bore fruit after more than a year of endless wait and admiration for those sexy creatures.  Anyway, it was just a matter of time before the fear of extra expenditure was outweighed by the tons of advantages of holding a smartphone.  To say the least, I was looking at every possible way to exercise every possible feature on the phone.  As the phrase goes, "There's an app for that", I went about finding an app(short for application) to ease my life into convenience.  There was always the excitement to try out a new app.

As a consequence of my absent mindedness, and as a lurking thought always presided in my head that I had the tendency to forget something, I decided to get organized.  When I say organized, it was actually a resolve, not just one of those shallow thoughts that hits me.  So, I decided to use the Calendar and Notes feature, and as though, that was not enough, I installed a cool app,  Remember the Milk, to keep a track of all the tasks to be completed.  It was a matter of pride to enter a task, and as soon as it neared completion, all enthusiasm inside me came out to mark the task as complete.  It was a great feeling.  Even if I had to do something that I was absolutely sure of, I would double click on the app, enter what I wanted to do, and set a due date diligently.  There was a sense of pride as I would tell my wife, "We are going to Walmart today evening. I have the details on the phone. " As usual, my wife would have an expression of "I have no idea what to say to you" written all over her face.  If this was not enough, I had all the things that had to bought for home on another cool app, OurGroceries.  Not that I was addicted to all these things, but it makes life easy with all these cool apps.  

I can rave about thousands of apps in the app store that makes life easy.  That is not the point thought.  The point is I was doing something to go past my forgetfulness to the realm of staying organized.  That was more important than anything else.  We went to the Old Navy store, made a purchase, and I submitted my credit card.  First, I forgot the credit card.  The lady at the cashier was kind enough to remind me that I had left my credit card.  I let out the customary "Ooh", and as we proceeded out, she again called out to me.  "Sir, you have left your phone." I heaped the thanks on her.  The sheepish grin was out once again.  We next went to Target.  We made our purchases, paid the cashier and walked out. The girl behind us called out, and again, I had left my phone next to the credit card swiping machine.  It was a lucky day indeed.  I don't often have this kind of luck.  I thanked my stars.  My wife was grinning at me with an expression for which I would have no way of getting back at her.  

It was one of those days.  And almost instantaneously, the phone buzzed, "Buy a new pair of shoes for the gym".   The reminder notification flashed out.