Words for My Enjoyment

I’m Here For You, Fellow Blackberriers

August 24th, 2006

What makes people feel connected?

For some, it’s a familial connection. For others, a shared experience. Others feel connected by those who share similar religious values, grew up in similar towns, or even wear the same kind of clothes or styles. And then there are others who feel connections based on the jobs they have, the places they work or the people they know.

Sadly for me, I’m abnormally connected to people who have a Blackberry device.

If you don’t know what a Blackberry is, you’ve been living under a rock that has no Wi-Fi. It’s a phone and it’s a personal organizer that retrieves your e-mail and allows you to text message people and which has games and allows you to surf the web and so on and so on. There’s even support groups for people who are addicted to using these Crackberries too much, too often.

But that’s not my problem.

The other night I was sitting in the front of a restaurant waiting for an available table when a young couple walked into the establishment. I looked at them and suddenly grew extremely concerned (if not worried) when I saw that the man had a Blackberry clip on his belt that was completely empty. Somewhere between leaving his car and arriving here at the restaurant — the Blackberry had gone missing.

Me: >”Excuse me. Your Blackberry clip is empty.”

Him: “What?”

[I showed him MY Blackberry, snuggled tightly into my belt clip.]

Me: “Your Blackberry clip. It’s empty. Maybe it fell out or something because I know that after awhile these Blackberry clips aren’t as snug as they should be and sometimes the Blackberry can fall out and then what are you left with? Huh? A Blackberry clip but NO Blackberry.”

Him: “Oh, I left it in my car.”

And while the tense slippery Blackberry situation had been resolved, I couldn’t help but wonder why someone would leave an empty Blackberry clip affixed to their belt loop. All that’s going to do is alert the rest of the Blackberriers in a one mile radius. I mean, do you go walking around with an empty bottle of water once it’s finished? Do you go walking around with an empty fanny pack around your waist? Do you go dancing around wearing iPod earphones without any iPod actually attached?

No, maybe, and no friggin way.

But the missing Blackberry situation is just the beginning of an obsessive need to connect with other fellow Blackberry users. If you’re wearing a Blackberry wireless bluetooth headset that looks like mine, I’m going to go up to you and talk about it. If you have scratches on the face of your Blackberry device, I might offer up a shammy cloth that will smooth those jaggies out just like I might offer a person a hanky after they’ve sneezed. If your Blackberry device rings and it has the same ring as my Blackberry device — I sort of look upon that as running into another English speaker in the middle of a non-English speaking third-world country.

You might be connected to someone because of their heritage. But for me, it’s all about the Blackberry.

But I’m here for you — and isn’t that all that matters?

Posted under Blackberry, Technology. |