Smartphone, really!?

Smartphone my eye.

If you’re so dang smart why won’t you call out to me from where you’re hiding? Are you in the couch? Under the bed? In the car? In the fridge like you were the other time I accidentally found you? At the very least why not leave a trail of text messages that can be followed.

I know there are applications that are supposed to make it easier to find you when you’ve gone walkabout, but they always seem to work for everyone else — who happens to write a glowing online review — and not me.

Hope you’re resting your genius little head because when I find you I’m going to bombard you with so many questions you’ll think I’m a hyperactive 3-year-old amped up on meth.

Why are there never enough cashiers at the grocery store when I want to rush in and buy one $2 item? And why does the person in front of me seemingly not know how to use the credit card reader or appear to have forgotten his PIN while buying 46 cabbage heads in the less than 12 items aisle? And why did a new checker miraculously appear just after I placed my pack of gum on the conveyer belt and tell the person behind me they can “help you over here”?

Why does the frail looking pedestrian — the one who is crossing in the middle of the street while I’m driving east as the rising sun melts my eyes and I stop to let pass even though I’m tragically late for an important meeting — frantically wave me on and glare at me as if I have threatened to cut the line to their oxygen tank?

Smartphone, why do you and my car keys conspire and run away together so that I can be tragically late to an important meeting?

Why do adults — people who are presumably old enough to drink booze, vote and make decisions affecting my life — wear pajama bottoms and slippers out in public when their home is not on fire?

Why do we insist on voting people who are “just like us” into office when us ain’t very bright, nice or reasonable?

Why do I follow the people I follow on Twitter?

Why do I Twitter?

Why do I get so upset when I let the jackass who has been waiting 10 minutes to merge into traffic cut in front of me and she doesn’t wave thank you?

No, seriously, why didn’t she wave!?

Why is it so hard to find someone to help me when I’m desperately searching for a tool I don’t know the name of at Home Depot, yet when I’m casually browsing the entire staff asks if they can help me find anything?

Why do you call or text people without my consent after I have tucked you away in my pocket?

Why do parents seem offended when I don’t gush over pictures of what they say is a child?

Why is it that I think of the proper retort, comeback or insult three days after I’ve been reproached?

But really what I most want to know right now, smartphone, is where the heck are you?