The Five Stages of Grief

Several thousand years ago, a Greek guy traveled many miles with an important message, then dropped dead. This event gave birth to the word marathon.

Last week, my blackberry traveled many miles to Puerto Rico filled with several important messages, then dropped dead. This event gave birth to a lot of words, most of them having four letters.

At first, I was in denial. I turned it off, then on again. I took out the battery and blew off the imaginary dust. I plucked out the SYM card and blew on that too just for good measure. I gave it to Tim who did all of these things over again.

I moved on to anger. I shook it, hit it and seriously considered chucking it out the window of the car onto the freeway.

From there, I segued into the third stage -- bargaining. I begged, I pleaded, I cajoled. I tried to do a nine day novena in nine minutes. Nada. My blackberry was D.O.A.

Panic began to set in. What if my friends or family needed to reach me that week? What if the alarm went off at the house and the alarm co. needed to get ahold of me (this has happened more than once)? More importantly, what if Pottery Barn was having a big sale or Overstock.com was having a free shipping weekend? Arrrrgh!!!

Tim tried to calm me down, assuring me that we could find a Verizon store somewhere on the island and get help (or maybe he said psychiatric hospital, I wasn't really paying attention to him at this point).

Upon arriving at the hotel, he headed for the registration desk and I beelined it for the concierge, pretty much plowing over anyone too slow to get out of my way.

"Is there a Verizon store nearby?" I gasped out.

The girl gave me a sympathetic smile. "Sorry, no."

I breathed deep and tried again. "Is there one anywhere ?"

"Not on Puerto Rico." She took a slight step backward. Smart girl.

"You have no Verizon store, cart, stand, anything, anywhere or the entire island?" I wanted to make sure I nailed it down to the letter before I took the final plunge off the deep end.

"No. We only have one company that was part of Verizon, but they don't offer Verizon service or help their customers."

Gee, another dysfunctional communications company. What are the odds???

"Is there anywhere you can recommend that I go for help with my blackberry?" I persisted.

"Sorry." No, she wasn't. She was still able to get her e-mails, phone calls and text messages. I, on the other hand, wouldn't be receiving any good luck because I couldn't forward the dancing leprechaun on to eighty-six of my closest friends in the next ten minutes.

Stage four, depression, kicked in and we weren't even checked in yet.

And to make matters worse, Tim had decided to travel light and only brought his blackberry with him. No second or third phone, no laptop. No contact at all with the outside world except for his blackberry. What had he been thinking!!!

One blackberry for the two of us? Right. Like I was ever going to get a crack at it. He would rather give me some other less vital part of him like a kidney or maybe half his brain.

And so, acceptance gradually set in. I visited the business center almost daily, but it wasn't the same. I had to fight for my thirty minutes of computer time with the rest of the other poor blackberryless fools. I would have been better off sticking a message in a bottle and waiting for low tide some days, and I don't even want to address the phone issue.

Tim, meanwhile, chatted away at the pool, the beach, the restaurant. He e-mailed and opened attachments with no time constraints or someone trying to look over his shoulder. He even googled a few times. He took his blackberry everywhere with him (yes, even the bathroom). So much for sharing.

Even now that we are back home and my blackberry is somewhat up and running (Puerto Rico is definitely off our list of vacation spots), I am still not through with the stages of grief. I think I may have found a sixth and seventh that were not on the original list. And every time my blackberry beeps and I get a voice message that was left last Tuesday or Wednesday, I go right back to the beginning and have to start all over again.