Where there once was a clock on the screen of my phone, there is now a series of lines and boldly colored blocks which very much resemble an early version of Tetris.  Every other day it completely shuts down on me, claiming a "SIM card error," and takes a full 45 minutes to reboot.

As far as I know, it gets reception in only 3.5 of the continental 48, and I fear that Kansas will not be one of them. And the clincher is that it's been set to some kind of Old-English/Australian-English for months now, and I don't know how to undo it.  Subsequently, a text as simple as "I ran into your sister in the bathroom and she says hello" turns into "I bumped into your mate in the loo and she bids you good morrow."  Therefore, everything must be proof-read and re-proof-read, which is time-consuming and therefore defies the speedy purpose originally served by texting. 

I trace most of these problems to a dinner during which my phone, unbeknownst to me, spent the better part of the appetizer course at the bottom of a Koi Pond.  (I assume I knocked it in there in my enthusiasm for said appetizers.)

Despite all of this, I was still planning on waiting until July, when I get a free upgrade, to get a new one.

Until today. 

Early this morning I was on my way to meet my friend Stephanie for a coffee, and I was running late.  So, I picked up my phone to let her know.

But my phone, jokester that it is, despite the fact that I found Stephanie in my phonebook and watched as I pressed send, decided it would be far more fun to dial my ex.  I had an early morning today, and it took me far too long to register that the voice on the other end was not actually Stephanie's.  Just long enough, in fact, for me to blurt out:  

"It's me.  I hate to tell you this, but I'm late."

I'm told that in a different context, those last two words can be pretty important.  

But as that particular context would have been impossible, and I still thought I was talking to Steph, I was not thinking along those lines and therefore the significance of what I'd just told the ex I hadn't seen since high school was completely lost on me.

I quickly gathered, however, that it was not lost on him.  As it turns out, although we haven't seen each other since high school, he has seen quite a few other ladies recently.  Smart and functioning ex that he is, he has also long since taken my number out of his phone.  How his has remained in mine this long, through 3 different phone numbers and 147 different phones, I don't know.  But there he was.

"I'm late," I said again.

Or rather, "I'm late," said the woman whose number he didn't recognize, who could have been any of his recent girlfriends.

"What? Are you sure?" he sounded panicked.  

Weird, I wonder why Steph sounds so worried about it, I thought.  I also wonder why she sounds so man-ish.

"Hello?" he said, still in a panic, and finally I recognized the voice.

"*******!!  Is that you?"

"Yeah it's me! Who is this?" For some reason, he sounded frazzled.  I couldn't imagine why.

"It's Melissa!  Gosh, sorry, so that was a funny mix-up, huh!?"  This was met with silence.  I checked my watch - 7:30a.m.  "Oh, sorry to wake you.  Go back to bed.  Happy Sunday!"

Happy Sunday indeed.  

I just had to tell Steph, so I dialed her again.

"First, I'm late, and second, you'll never believe what I just did," I said immediately when she answered.

"Look Melissa, I don't know what kind of a joke this is," ******* began, and for the second time this morning I quickly hung up.

I'm sure my phone has a whole grab-bag of fancy party tricks waiting for me inside its cheap plastic interior, so I turned it off with the thought that rebooting it may help.

I fully expect it will be up and running again by Valentines Day.

Unless of course, I get a new one.  I've long since made my peace with my phone ruining my day, but I draw the line when it ruins someone else's. 

The other day, Madeleine decided to throw her Barbies a wedding.  This particular wedding was unique in that each and every Barbie got to get married, and to the same handsome Ken, and every Polly Pocket in the area was invited, who all accepted and arrived by Polly Pocket Fun In The Sun yacht.  Some of the Barbies were only half dressed, but they walked down the aisle anyway, beaming, tan, and willfully entering into polygamy.

If it had taken place in the real world, it would have been hosted in Utah, featured the residents of the Playboy Mansion, and the cast of Little People Big World would have been invited, but only if they came by boat.

I had to smile at the innocent misperception of it all, and I wasn't about to correct her.  We were halfway through Bride #4's first dance with Ken when she turned to me and asked how wedding receptions are typically set up.

"Oh, there's usually a head table where the bridal party sits," I began, "and then other tables throughout the room, a dance floor, and if you're lucky, an open bar, which is where most of the single people hang out."

"What's an open bar?" she asked.  "Like monkey bars?"

Before I could answer her, thank God, Peter came in and the peaceful group wedding turned to tearful disaster as the Polly Pocket yacht was violently capsized and stepped on.  Her question, though reminded me of my early perceptions of weddings.

I bought my first bridal magazine when I was about 6.  I immediately zeroed in on and selected my dream wedding dress.  A woman was sitting on a very expansive red velvet staircase, ensconced in layer upon layer of lace, ruffles, and puffy sleeves.  It was hideous.  She was drowning.  And I loved it.  I thought she looked very much like a princess.

In the same magazine, I also stumbled upon my dream honeymoon suite.  It was enormous.  It was tacky.  And right in the middle was a hot tub in the shape of a giant champagne flute.  Sitting inside was a couple, toasting what I thought must be 7-UP, and I immediately became all the more excited for my wedding night.  I usually only got 7-UP when I was sick, so this would surely be a special treat.  I also found myself wondering why they were so busy drinking soda, when they could be doing what this room must be made for - swimming in the champagne glass hot tub.  I wondered why the woman wasn't wearing the one-piece speedo sport suit she'd surely bought for the occasion, and why on earth they weren't wearing goggles.  I hardly had time to notice that the floors of the room were covered in red velvet carpeting.

All of this red velvet in my early dreams must be, I've decided, where I developed my deep and lifelong love for Red Velvet Cake.

From this basic image of what might be the trashiest honeymoon suite ever, my vision only grew.  By the time I was done drawing it up in my mind, it came fully furnished with not only the champagne flute hot tub, but also with a saltwater tank filled with dolphins with which we could swim, a rope swing into said tank, a ball pit, and a chin-up bar.  Why, I don't know - I've always hated chin-ups.  But there it was. 

The irony is that I wasn't then and am not now the type of girl who would have enjoyed such a suite.  It was built for an entirely different kind of princess altogether - one who definitely rules her own empire, but whose empire consists of women with names like Epiphany and Candi, and camera men with creepy mustaches. 

But at the time, having absolutely no idea what actually went on in a honeymoon suite, it was filled with glorious images of me and my husband-to-be swimming with dolphins, snorkeling all the way to the bottom of the champagne flute, and drinking liter after liter of white soda.  If my thoughts ever made it past our fun in the sun days, the nights were no doubt filled with images of nothing but hand holding and pin the tail on the donkey.

And, inevitably, I have to believe that the presence of the chin up bar had nothing to do with calisthenics, and everything to do with my desire to wow him by performing my gymnastics bar routine.  The only move I'd ever mastered was the hip pull over, the most elementary of them all, so no doubt it would have gotten a little repetitive, but I was sure I was the most graceful hip pullover there was, and equally sure this would one day win me someone's undying and lifelong affection.

My dad recently told me that he's glad I never ended up pursuing my Olympic gymnast dreams, and looking back I can see why.  Performing my half-assed cartwheel on my wedding night would have led to the quickest annulment of any marriage not performed in a Vegas chapel.   

Thank God those dreams have changed, but it's funny to look back on these perceptions - when it made sense that all your best friends would marry the same Ken, because wasn't he great, and why wouldn't there be monkey bars at your wedding?  Everyone loved them, and you want people to have fun at your wedding, don't you?  

In high school I took a career aptitude test, like most students my age.  Unlike most students my age, however, my ideal careers turned out to be Bus Driver and Garbage Truck Driver.  The former, I'm assuming, came from my extreme punctuality and affinity for large groups of children.  The latter, I'm sure, from my affinity for leftovers.

If I were to take that test again today, I have a feeling the three glaring strengths that would stand out would be a love writing, a love of taking care of people, and a keen interest in someday meeting a celebrity.

I know what you're thinking - this points to one of three ideal careers - Celebrity biographer, celebrity nanny, or full time caretaker for the likes of Lindsay Lohan or John Gosselin.  I've never been all that grossed out by cleaning up other peoples vomit, and cleaning up after these two would surely be karmic retribution for all those people who have, over the years, cleaned up after me. 

It's just a matter of working at what you're passionate about.  The more you love what you do, the harder you'll work at it.  When it comes to things I'm passionate about, I'll work as hard as anyone out there - I'd write until my fingers bleed, if that's what it came down to.  When it comes to work I'm not passionate about, however, the Tooth Fairy and I seem to share a similar work ethic:  We both like to have a lot of money, preferably quarters, at our disposal, we like a job that only requires a few hours of effort a day (or in her case, a night,) and we like the option of, if we feel like taking the night off, having someone onto whom we can pass the blame.

This lack of passion is one of the reasons the corporate world was not a good fit for me.  Another clue that I was perhaps in the wrong place was my distaste for things like the ever popular Blind Copy.  Like most things, the blind copy began with good intentions and can still serve a decent purpose.  But also like most things, that purpose has all but disappeared and it is now just another way to be petty.  Being blind copied on an email felt like the professional equivalent of a three-way phone call to your 7th grade boyfriend.  On said call, he didn't know you were listening in, and therefore would confess just about anything to the third party.  Busted.  This behavior was good for one phone call before they would catch on and stop trusting anyone on the other end of the line, unless it was their grandmother.  (Who I also once pretended to be.)

The biggest clue, though, that my chosen field was not for me, was that I just plain sucked at it.  Marketing requires a great deal of salesmanship, and I don't have an ounce of it.  Once, in a mock interview, I sat down across from my very pregnant professor, and she asked me to sell her a tube of lipstick.  My brilliant sale went a little like this:

"This is the lipstick for you.  Not only is it ... um ... well, it's a beautiful color.  Skin tone is a tricky thing, especially yours, so it's important to find a lipstick that looks good with your skin tone.  You have a skin tone that ... um ... would look good with this lipstick.  How many times have I said skin tone?  Also, you're probably pretty worried about that baby you're carrying.  You should know that there are certain chemicals linked to birth defects, so you want to stay away from those chemicals.  And, um, well this lipstick probably doesn't have them.  But if it does, that lipstick you have on probably does too, so either way, your fetus is in trouble."

Suffice it to say it did not go well, and any further attempts throughout the semester to congratulate her once again on her pregnancy were met with a very icy stare.   

So it looks like unless I get a call from the Affleck's asking if I'd consider nannying for them, I will stick with writing.  And if all else fails, school bussing.   

Several times in the last few years I have been on the receiving end of some pretty intense meltdowns.  There have been tears, a good deal of kicking and screaming, stomping of the feet, slamming of doors, lying on the floor and banging one's fists against it, time-outs...

Every once in a while, these meltdowns have actually come from children.  

When a toddler has a meltdown, one of the causes usually cited is overstimulation.  Busy supermarkets, noisy malls, crowded restaurants ... all prime places for an onslaught of visual, audible and tactical stimuli - and therefore, meltdowns.  I've also heard the term 'overstimulation' used in regards to the media, and the sheer volume of it that we as adults are bombarded with on a daily basis.

Let me put this bombardment into perspective.

I still remember that the back-scrubbing brush in my bathroom growing up was bright yellow.  I remember exactly how many grooves it had along its back.  I distinctly remember the exact shapes and sizes of the holes and dents in our kitchen table that always collected the glitter from my art projects, and the exact floorboard in my grandmother's den that served as a secret compartment.

I can recall in vivid detail every one of my 20-plus stuffed animals - where I got them, what I named them, and their place in the stuffed animal pecking order they'd inevitably fall into.  I remember the name, breed, temperament and age of every imaginary horse housed in my imaginary horse stable, (cool kid that I was.)  

But, try as I might , I cannot for the life of me remember the name of the guy who introduced himself less than five minutes ago as I was ordering my coffee.  I can't even remember if I paid for my coffee this morning.

Come to think of it, I'm not even sure that was this morning.

My severe lack of singular focus is partly to blame, I'm sure.  Still, you've got to wonder how you can remember such vivid details from childhood, yet not remember if you're wearing shoes at the moment.  

Last week, driving to Chicago, I was simultaneously: listening to music, mentally checking off my to-do list for the next day, taking in the hundreds of billboards along the side of the road, trying to decide if I was hungry or not, trying to remember if I'd already eaten or not, trying to remember exactly what was in the to-go mug next to me, and trying to warm my hands up by sitting on them while steering with my knees.

And they worry about texting while driving.

There's some statistic about exactly how many advertisements the average person sees and/or hears every day - between billboards, signage, radio, television, the Internet, etc.  I can't remember how many it is but I think it's well into the hundreds.  Add this to the multi-tasking we're already doing just to keep track of our professional and personal lives, and I think we've found the culprit.

Now think back to bath-time at the age of 5, when my biggest concern was whether or not Santa Claus was going to fit down our chimney this year.  I was almost certain he would, as long as he hit our house before all the neighbors, because they sure left him a lot of cookies, and I was already well aware that after too many cookies, you couldn't fit into things you used to fit into.  I'd have to ask my parents about it.  Luckily, this thought probably occurred around April, so I had time.  After checking that concern off the list, I was left with ...

Absolutely nothing to worry about.  And therefore absolutely nothing to focus on.

Except counting the ridges on the back of my back-scrubbing brush.  

(There were three.)