iPhone, therefore iAm.  Think about it.*  My iPhone has become such an integral part of my existence that the very thought of losing it sends me into a panic. Take the other day at work. I’m just sitting there, happily gabbing with my friend Sherry, when suddenly I realize my phone is not on my desk or in my pocket! Having just concluded a meeting with my boss, I rush down the 50 foot corridor to his office, burst inside and anxiously demand if he’s seen my phone. “It’s in your hand.”  “It’s not on my desk or in my pocket and….what?” “It’s in your hand.”  Removing the phone from my ear, I stare at it in shock and awe, as though a live grenade has suddenly appeared in my hand, and a second later, it explodes with shrieks of laughter. “I gotta go, Sherry.” Now it’s my boss’s turn. He collapses into his chair and slaps the desk, laughing like a baby tickled into hilarity or the way porky pig laughs at daffy duck. I waddle back down the hall to my office with him holding onto the door for support and gasping after me, “Thank you.  Thank you very, very much!”  Dethpicable.

Well, let them laugh. I can’t help it. I love my phone. I get my mail, access social media, the internet, listen to music   watch movies, read books, jot down notes, record where I parked my car, take pictures and videos, check the weather, look up addresses, get restaurant and movie reviews, read the news or the scriptures, and text my friends.  Sometimes I even use it to make calls.

And there are games.  Addictive games.  Be guided by me.  Do not download Candy Crush Saga.  I made it through 28 levels, loving the rush of the sugar crush more and more with each level completed.  To fail over and over and then to see those words quietly appear on the screen___Sugar Crush. Then to watch all the red, green, yellow, orange and purple candy explode and fall downward in a torrent of sugar crystals. What a rush! What a rush!  And I ALWAYS have to yell the words out loud whenever it happens. “Sugar Crush!!!” Like Honey Boo Boo Child, it makes me holla. Finally one day I arrived at level 29 and spent the next three weeks trying to achieve sugar crush. I accepted these repeated failures with my usual maturity and grace.  

At last I succeeded and two days later, sugar crushed on levels 30, 31, 32 and 33 in just two hours! Not being a smoker, I savored the occasion instead with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream.  And this.  What better way to celebrate a sugar crush than with a sugar rush? Feel free to copy and share. Divine! That’s another thing about this game that is so enticing. With even the slightest competent move, a man’s deep voice encourages you with, “Divine!” “Sweet!” “Tasty!” “Delicious!”  Abrra has lost her mind playing the game. She has given up all semblance of struggle and now self-indulgently plays level 7 over and over and over, just for the cheap thrill of a quick and easy sugar crush.  Sad.

Here, in a series of texts sent to me by my concert buddy and monthly Archulunch partner Biz, is documented proof of the addictive properties of the game. There are a million stories in the Candy Crush Saga. This, is just one of them.

I know David wanted us to develop ourselves while he’s away working on the person he can’t wait to bring back to us. I had such big plans for these 2 years. I meant to go outside, honest. The only exercise I did for the DA2014 Fitness Club on twitter was to push the follow tab. I was going to learn Spanish. I downloaded several Spanish language apps but that’s as far as I got.

Now a whole year has passed and what have I achieved? Level 45 so far. I hope to achieve level 65 before he returns, which by all reports is virtually impossible.  Then I’ll work on scoring level G, rows 1-10 for that other crush I’m so obsessed with.

* With apologies to René Descartes:  “I think, therefore I am.”