I always thought those people who were so attached to their possessions were ridiculous.

“I would die without my iPod.” Or, “I don’t know what I would do without my Mac.”

These statements just seem too much – too tragic to be taken seriously.

Really? You would literally lose your life if your MP3 player were somehow taken from you?

And you don’t know what you would do without your Apple computer?

I mean, I don’t know your personal circumstances, but I’m pretty sure you could start off by just, well, using a PC.

But as much as I like to mock how entranced my friends and some family members are with their technology, I can no longer pretend I am not part of that crowd.

This weekend, I lost my cell phone.

Sunday evening, I searched in vain for my phone. That afternoon, I had been all over town running some errands, but assumed I had left my phone at home.

Nope.

It was nowhere. My house looked like a crime scene: couch and chair cushions strewn everywhere, furniture moved around and the contents of every drawer piled up on tables.

Sunday night, I sat in my room in borderline grief.

My phone is not just my cell phone — it’s really my house phone, address book, alarm clock (my real alarm clock is just not as trusty), calendar and even, in the necessary conditions, flashlight.

As I started to think of all the messages and calls I was missing and how I would have to rely on the old clock for the morning, I began to think of how I could not function without a new phone. Yes, that’s right, Suffolk, I was making the exact tragic statements as all the rest.

First thing Monday morning I trekked up to my phone store and got a brand new phone.

And I felt my first real relief in more than 18 hours.

Now, as fate would have it, this is not the end of the story.

Tuesday evening, I realized I had thrown away the instructions to a new platter I had purchased last weekend. I wanted to see if said platter was dishwasher safe. As I went to retrieve the box from my kitchen trashcan, what did my eyes spy in the bottom of the bin? Oh, yes, the original cell phone – sitting perfectly straight against the side.

So, let this be a lesson to all of us: The thing we hold closest to us will be the thing we somehow manage to throw away.