Smartphones are making us dumb...

On my way to the audition at 20 Jay Street, I realized a little too late that my iPhone had given me the wrong directions, prompting me to get off the F train at Jay Street-Metrotech and walk fifteen minutes back towards Manhattan. If the people at Apple really wanted to make the Apple update appealing, they would have made Siri a 56 year old New Yorker who knows the quickest way to get anywhere, when taking the bus just isn't an option.

Once my GPS confirmed that I was going the right way, I put the phone back in my pocket and began the walk back up to DUMBO, occasionally checking the map on my phone as the uber-hipster landscape began to unfold before me. Then, as I passed Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, I came to 20 Jay Street.

Now, I had read the email several times. I knew that this was the address. But since I got my iPhone, I have gotten into the habit of glancing at emails, websites, maps and messages without actually absorbing any information, knowing that I can just look it up. Someone will invite me out to a restaurant and I don't even look up what neighborhood it's in until I'm already on the train.

So though in my heart I knew that this was the right building, I still felt the need to check my map and confirm. The phone caught on the edge of my pocket and I felt the tell-tale yank on my headphones that signifies, "you are about to drop your very expensive phone."

Not to worry, I bought a cushion-y case to shield Tim the iPhone from my frequent dropping.

Then, I watched in horror as Tim the iPhone skidded across the cobblestones, and landed with a PLOP in the middle of the only puddle on Water Street. (The irony occurred to me only after I'd finished crying hysterically.) At least three people witnessed its demise, and all three of them stopped to offer their sympathies. New Yorkers might be callous and hard about most things, but I guess some pain in universal.

But one young man went above and beyond. He was walking behind me when it happened, and rushed to my side immediately. As I stood, completely shell-shocked, trying to wipe the phone off on my sleeve, he took me step-by-step through exactly what I needed to do to save my phone.

Turn it off immediately. DO NOT turn it back on.
Get some uncooked rice, and put the phone in it. The rice will absorb all the moisture.

"Don't lose hope," he said, "it might be okay."

And then he was gone. He's pretty much responsible for the successful recovery of Tim the iPhone (spoiler alert--he's as good as new). Wish I could thank him, but I don't know who he is.

Now, I've heard of the rice thing before, but I was so completely shocked that I never would have thought of it. So I raced into the nearest Organic Produce and Grass-Fed Meat store, bought a $5 bag of rice (thanks hipsters) and stuck my phone in it. I tied it up in the recycled plastic bag and buried it deep in my purse along with my feelings.

And then I was alone on the street. I didn't know what time it was, nor what floor of the building the audition was on. I couldn't call to ask, and the building's fancy touch-screen directory yielded nothing. I couldn't call my Mom and cry to her, and I didn't know where the York Street subway stop was. And Oh my God what if something happens to me and I can't call 911? Immediately I felt like a target for muggers and murderers (at noon on a Tuesday) as if there was a big sign above my head that read, "Can Only Call For Help Vocally."

And then I remembered: The world has existed without cell phones. When people actually had to make plans ahead of time, pick a place to meet and actually be there on time. When we didn't call each other from across the mall to say, "I'm by Maternity. I see you, turn to your left and walk straight." We used our voices and waved our arms, remember?

Furthermore, I remember the world without smartphones, when people actually had to retain information, like where subway stops were. And if you were watching TV and saw an actor you knew from some other movie, you couldn't just pull out your pocket-sized computer and gain access to a whole list of everything they've ever done. You had to remember or it would bug the crap out of you.

I checked that email four times and I still didn't trust that I knew the address.

Is this what I've become? Someone who can't remember a brunch date without a little reminder that pops up while I'm playing DoodleJump? Have a really lived in New York my entire life and still don't know how to find the freaking F train?

I found the York Street subway stop on my own, went back to Midtown, crashed The Boyfriend's office and threw myself into his arms. Then, with an hour and a half until I had to be at work, and no way of knowing when that hour and a half would be up, I went to Starbucks ordered a Grande Bold and I realized:

I need a fucking watch.