Surf at Your Own Risk

Last night I nearly plowed over my daughter because I was walking and surfing my phone. I was actually looking up something very important that I thought I needed to know immediately, but now I can’t even recall what it was. Audrey, always a flibbertigibbet, had stopped dead in her tracks to observe (and later coax onto her arm) a white moth on the ground. This kind of curiosity is the stuff we parents generally salivate over. Only I was so distracted by my phone that I barreled into her, pulled her shoe off her heel and nearly knocked her over.

Audrey wasn’t pleased and lectured me on watching where I was going. (Audrey, by the way, is six-going-on-CEO.) No one was hurt, but I can certainly see the potential in an urban area with cars or more general activity. Lucky for us, we were at a baseball complex well before the game. And while I’m comforted slightly to know that I’m not the only one walking around with my head up my phone, it frightens me a bit to realize that people are ending up in the ER. 

We used to tell Audrey to “put it away” when she would stick her tongue out at us. Now she’s telling me to “put it away” when I’ve been on my phone too long, and certainly when I’m bumbling around trying to do something else at the same time.

Chalk it up to another lesson learned from my kids (the list is long, by the way). I should stop more often to inspect the white moths in the gravel. After all, that’s where the real action is–not on my phone.