So the phone sits among my nightgowns, essentially deceased. I only recently acknowledged that it will never be what a phone should be—someone’s steadfast companion, a guilty pleasure, a fetish object alive with the hallucinatory wonders of the entire angelic and demonic internet.

What happened is my son rejected my gift. He simply said no to the present I’d bought and wrapped for him. He didn’t want a phone. He really didn’t want a phone. As I protested that he need use it only for calls and texts, he dug in, and became emotional. Please don’t make me get a phone. So I tucked the iPhone 4 in my drawer, assuming he’d come around. Three years later, he still hasn’t.

What. The. Fuck.