I left the house feeling like something was off. I couldn’t place it. I just knew all was not right. I shrugged it off since I had to get to work though and carried on.

As I was waiting on a 405 off ramp, I glanced at my phone. Or where I thought my phone should be. Uh oh. I sunk my hand in my purse and swished around, hoping to feel that familiar rectangular piece of glass.

It wasn’t there. Damn.

It hadn’t even hit noon yet and I had a long workday ahead of me. I wouldn’t be home, or more notably at that moment, I wouldn’t see my phone, until nearly ten in the evening.

I panicked. A little. Not in the “HOLY SH*%, my finger’s just been sliced off” type way but in the “Crap, I have a two-hour break and without a phone, it will suck” type way.

I turned to the backseat. Damn.

I had forgotten my weekly Hollywood Reporter too (last week’s issue actually, which I was still trying to finish.)

I arrived at work. Oh well, I thought. I did my thing. Served some tables. Poured some drinks. Made some money.

I left for my break. I had a little over two hours before I needed to get back. I started to do the math in my head. I theoretically could have gone home to get my phone and still have time to grab a bite to eat and get some emails or phone calls done. I rationalized it in my head and got in my car.

The 10 was a parking lot, which I habitually got on since I normally work a double and leave around ten in the evening. I spent twenty minutes barely moving and berating myself for caring so much about my phone. I had other work I could do. In fact, I had a meeting with my writing partner the very next day and hadn’t written the scene we were to go over yet.

I went to a quaint little Chinese restaurant, ordered the beef fried rice and settled in for an hour or so at one of their red faux-leather booths.

I wrote the scene on the backs of two printed coupons I had in my car and three index-card-sized pages of paper I ripped out of a notepad I always keep with me.

Flash forward to the meeting with my writing partner.

I told her the story I just told you. Then I read her the scene (which took effort by the way because my writing was hastily scribbled and half the size it should be.) But I read it to her, to which afterward she replied,

“Thank God you forgot your phone.”

I was thrilled she liked the scene, which I wrote based on our notes from a prior session, but I kept wondering if I would have written this same scene had I not forgotten my phone? And what else do I not do because I have my little time-sucking machine attached to fingers should I find myself with an extra minute? I do not want to be a slave to this thing. Yes, I love the convenience of checking my email and not missing important calls but really, Facebook statuses and words with friends and random searches on the web should not be on my to-do list nearly as often as I do them. So readily on my phone.

Think about it. I say, forget your phone sometimes! Okay, just turn it off for a bit? Oh hell, at least put it on silent then…

How much more do you think you’d get done?