I FEEL THE CHILL...

Does the sight of an unknown number on your cell phone (worse yet are the ominous words "Private Number" or "Unknown Caller") set your hair on edge? Better yet, does the mere ring of your cell phone send you into paroxysms of doom? But when did this happen? When did the jolly upbeat "brrring" of the telephone that signalled a potential admirer or a nocturnal soiree turn into the ominous "rat-a-tat" of the "unknown"?

Why, in the age of uber-connection, does even the sight of a friend's phone number cause us to hold our breath and dive under the table? The answer is simple. Having the world at your doorstep means that the world is now ringing your doorbell...poking at you at all hours of the day and night...with all manner of requests, from the benign to the outright dangerous. And if anything can be asked of you, then you are open to the unfortunate situation of being forced to admit that even you, witty, urbane, capable creature that you are, cannot...or worse...will not be able to fulfill what is asked of you.

In our culture, the act of admitting that "I can't" or "I won't" is translated as "I am an incapable, dysfuntional, average village idiot who can't seem to respond to the 250 emails and 65 phone calls and 3 inches of junk mail I receive every day....not to mention the other life and death requests made by live and virtual human beings at work, at school, at home, in the neighborhood, at my AA meetings, at the market, at the gym, at the drugstore, on the freeway who, by some random act of synchronicity, have been placed in my path for the express purpose of making me painfully aware of how utterly lame I am at navigating this rat's nest of exponential obligations that we call modern life." At this point, you're either on the verge of a huge anxiety attack, or already "gone awol" into the deep blue waters of "voluntary non-communication", which, by the way, is the closest thing to a mortal sin that we have in this culture. For some reason, it is thought that to endure these requests, give some half-baked answer and allow yourself to feel bad about how bad the other person is going to feel when you are too overwhelmed to deal with them is somehow better than to simply avoid this type of situation altogether.

The symptoms are unmistakeable, crystal-clear, yet it takes years and a lot of courage to be able to see a gigantic looming iceberg two feet away from your boat and even beging to say "Do you think that might be a teeny tiny little iceberg up there?" If you answered, "Nah, I don't think so either," keep reading.

Anyday, Here, Now. Right now.
It's a sunny afternoon and you've ducked into a coffee bar in another part of town where you are sure not to run into anyone you know...or anything for that matter...to seize a simple cup of joe and a blissful "me moment". No sooner do you sip your soy latte than you are jarred into reality with the jingling, jangling "brrr" of your latest celular device. You freeze in mid-sip. You begin to perspire, the sweat beading on your temples, oozing into your palms..."Uh-oh, it's the ex....it's the aged parent I forgot to call back from 3 days ago...it's the friend I forgot to call back in 1999....it's the really old boyfriend I've been avoiding for 10 years...Oh god, please don't let it be another creditor...and really please don't let it be the same creditor who's already called 45 times today...no...wait...it's the cel phone company telling me my check bounced...it's the bank saying I'm 1000 dollars in the red...it's the Red Hat Society asking me to join...it's the committee I signed up for somewhere to do something I can't remember but was probably today...now....five hours ago....they hate me...I screwed up...the whole event was a shambles...people are mad...lives lost...tragic errors have been committed...ohmygod it's the school but I didn't answer and my kid has been kidnapped by aliens and I'm in a coffee bar, wasting time, avoiding real life, hiding from everyone I know, frozen in fear...absolutely unable to even ANSWER MY PHONE FOR GOD'S SAKE....just answer it, who knows, maybe it's not bad news...but hey, the odds of that are 900 to 1..... "

Just as you almost run out of air, you notice the phone has stopped ringing. Thank god for voicemail. Thank god for the fact that we don't have video cel phones. Thank god for the fact that no one can actually find me...wait, of course they can find me...they can trace my cel phone calls...the debit card I used to pay for this goddamned latte...I am so stupid...why didn't I pay cash...why don't I have any cash...because I don't have any money...obviously, why else would I be paying with a debit card...that's it...it's the coffee bar! They're calling me to say that my debit card didn't work....they're after me...they'll be out here any minute looking for the 40 year old loser who can't afford a 5 dollar cup of coffee! Ohmygod...my mother was right, if I'd only listened to her and joined the CIA...and married a rich yet boring and totally unsexyguy from a good family...and worn more makeup...and the right clothes and FIXED MY HAIR...none of this would've happened!

(A tow truck pulls up to the parking lot)....ohmygodohmygod they're towing my car....oh shit...I haven't paid it in 2 months...3 months...who knows...it's been a long long long long time....but I'm too scared to look....they're driving up to my car...god, how embarrassing...having your pre-owned 1998 vehicle with the ancient dents in the side towed away while you're sipping a latte in a swanky west-side coffee bar....oh my god! I don't know what's worse....looking up to watch them do it...or just standing up and running as fast as I can down the street...but how can I explain it...I'll say it was stolen...by thugs...terrorists...out of towners having a bad day...I'll say I sold it...I'm going green...that's it...that's noble...selfless...so environmentally something....ohmygod I can't do that...how am I going to get to my lunch date across town...how can I tell them I can't have lunch because I can't drive to lunch??? An Angeleno without a car? How embarrassing...how did this happen? How can this un-happen...who can I call? How can I call them if my phone's been cut off?

Thankfully, seconds before self-implosion, I manage to peer out of the corner of my left eye and see that the tow truck is here to jump start a tempermental Jag. Whew..! A huge sigh of relief...five more minutes of reprieve...thank you god...I'll never screw up again...I will answer the phone...I will write that thank-you note for last year's birthday present...which I loved...from a friend who I love...but I haven't managed to thank yet because I'm so uncomfortable with the fact that they felt they had to give me such a nice present because I couldn't afford it myself! How in god's name can I ever bring myself to write that note? Maybe they'll just forget about me, write me off as some rude creature they once knew, maybe I'll just fall off the radar and never have to actually re-admit what a total loser I am....Maybe they'll move out of State, go into the Witness Protection Program...be forbidden to contact any of their old friends...and totally forget I ever existed...yeah...yeah....that's it...that's it..."

Down and down the rabbithole. That's how it starts. Pretty soon there are Bergs bobbing on every horizon, of all shapes and sizes, all brought into being by Other Bergs, calving and cleaving off of each other until the sea of your life is nothing but torturous obligations, bobbing reminders of past failures, current inadequacies, and certain future extinction. You can't even begin to imagine a sea of "happy happy joy joy" tomorrows because everything out there feels like just another trigger to massive overwhelm.

Your life becomes a series of tense seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks and months of sheer survival, hanging on by your frazzled wits and furrowed fingernails. Even you can't imagine how you manage to merely "hang on" in the midst of such mega-stress. And the worst of it is that anything you can think of that might actually get you out of it actually costs so much in terms of money, time and effort that to undertake such activity would have a direct and fatal impact upon your current survival. Not to mention that unspeakable horror...asking for help...which is the nail in the coffin of utter and abject failure. Talk about a Berg and a cold place!