Disconnected

In a lesson with a pupil recently and we were discussing her next lesson. Her usual slot was not available because another pupil has a test booked, so I said I could text her my available times for next week. She replied "I don't have a mobile." These days, that is a bit like saying 'I don't have a television', it is almost taken for granted that everyone has one.
I remember my dad getting a 'mobile' phone back in the 80's. It was one of those ones with a huge separate battery. Being a self-employed builder, I could understand why he needed one. But, as they became smaller they became more ubiquitous, although I often wondered why people had them. For a time, it seemed that I was the only person in the world that didn't have one. Why would I want one? I was a publican and rarely ventured out into the pub car park, let alone be far enough away to be out of contact. If anyone desperately wanted to contact me when I was at the wine merchant, or bank, or wherever, they could leave a message on my answerphone and I would return their call when I returned.
Finally, about seven years ago, roughly when I began my training to become a driving instructor, I decided that perhaps I should get one. The trouble is, once you have got one, you don't know how you ever managed without it. Last year I moved on to my second mobile phone - one with all sorts of stuff on it which I don't use. But, it does have a useful calendar/diary function which I use, plus easy acces to the internet, which has enabled me to book driving tests while I am out in my car.
Last Friday morning, I checked my phone and was surprised to see no new messages. I tried to send a message to one of my pupils and the phone just crashed. No amount of taking the battery and SIM card out and switching back on again could bring it back to life. Disaster.
I write my bookings in a diary, as well as entering them into my phone's calendar, but I had lots of lessons to arrange and no way of doing so. Luckily, I had an hour's gap in the afternoon, so I took the phone into the 3 shop to ask them to fix it. They could not fix it and said it would have to be sent away (in four days time). In the meantime they provided me with another phone (which, a week later, I'm still trying to get used to). The trouble was (and I did not know this at the time), all my messages and contact numbers had been stored to my phone's memory, not the SIM card. So, when I finally got home, charged up my replacement phone, and switched it on, I still had no way of contacting all the pupils I needed to contact.
Since then, I have received dozens of texts that I have not known who they were from. It has been quite embarassing having to reply 'Sorry, ..... who are you?'. Fortunately, I have recorded many of my pupils' contact details in my diary, so I have been spending ages entering all my contacts into my temporary phone. This time, however, I have not repeated my mistake, and have saved them all to the SIM.

I still don't really see the point in spending too much on a phone just because it has features on it that you will probably never use, but I have been converted. When people in my pub used to say 'Oh, I couldn't manage without my phone' I now know EXACTLY what they meant.