I wish I hadn’t dropped my Iphone 6 so many times.  The screen is cracked in multiple places, being held together by the hard plastic screen protector I bought along with the phone when the 6 was released in 2014.  It was actually doing pretty well considering the fact that it’s been dropped from Malibu to Massachusettes, Kansas to Death Valley, in the San Joaquin Valley, Carmel and the Sierra Nevada, the Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho, New Mexico, Nevada, Nebraska and Vermont.  It’s been dropped on big city streets and in sand dunes, in mud and on airplanes and passenger trains.  It falls out of my uniform chambray shirt pocket when I lean over to pick stuff up or when I’m loading laundry, pulling weeds or getting out of the car at rest stops in the desert.   It has over 8,000 photographs on it (I don’t delete… those are life experiences we’re talking about).  I even took a picture of J.D. Salinger’s house in Cornish, New Hampshire with that phone (Yes, I found J.D. Salinger’s house).

When I bought this Iphone two and half years ago I wrapped it up in a thick, rubberized case that bounces, so it could have died a horrible death long ago except for that case.  It bounced off of lava rocks, concrete and asphalt, marble and tile, salt flats and hard, baked dirt.  It was a great case.  I wish I’d never taken it off and put this battery booster one on two months ago, because now my Iphone is destroyed, especially when it once again fell out of my chambray shirt pocket at The Living Desert in Palm Springs last weekend.  A woman who saw it fall out watched as the corner shattered.  She gasped in horror and screamed, “Oh, no…!!!  Oh, that’s too baaaad.”.  Her companion gasped as well, as if they had just witnessed someone being hit by a car.  Since I had to keep that now-shattered phone going for the next week all through Arizona I made a great big wish that it could stay alive until I got home to replace it with an Iphone 7, which I’m not thrilled about with the whole headphone jack situation.

What I decided to do when I returned home yesterday was take off that flimsy battery boosting case and put the bouncy, rubberized case back on again.  I’m going to wait on buying myself that new Iphone 7 and I’ll keep using this shattered one.  I like it.  I’m very fond of it.  It’s been with me through good and bad times, it lays on my side table when I sleep, rides next to me in my car and sits inside my chambray shirt pocket.  It’s my way to make sure my sons are alive and well.   It’s my mail, my weather, my entertainment and my image-maker.  It’s been a good friend to me.  I like to think of it as my sidekick.

Instead I’m going to make a BIG WISH, until I’m ready to let go of this particular phone.  What’s that wish?

My wish is that Apple would finally design an Iphone that doesn’t break.

Flagstaff, Arizona