I am reluctant to say how often I consult my iPad. Let’s just say it’s more than once a day. Let’s just say it’s more than twice a day. Let’s just say it’s, oh, 17 or 18 times a day.
I look at my iPad in the morning to check on my mail. I look at my iPad in the afternoon to see whether I will need to take an umbrella to work the following day.
I look at my iPad throughout the day to check on my bank balance, to make a reservation at my favourite Italian restaurant, to find driving directions, to monitor NFL scores and to look at the news of the world.
And so, it came to be that the family went on a little getaway. We found a cottage on the water on one of the Gulf Islands. It was lovely.
The proprietor had left a little binder on the kitchen counter that told us what we’d need to know. Coffee filters were in the top, right-hand kitchen cabinet, it said. Extra towels were in the laundry room. Fire logs were on the deck.
There was no television, it said. And, oh, there was no WiFi.
“There’s no WiFi,” I announced. I looked forlornly at my iPad, which was on the counter next to the binder.
“Oh,” said the husband.
“Oh,” said the sons.
At this point in the getaway, I probably would have consulted the iPad just to, well, see what the forecast was or to look at my mail.
“We won’t know what the weather’s going to be like this weekend,” I informed the fam.
“Oh, well,” said the eldest son. “We’ll find out soon enough.”
OK: point taken.
But then there was this: I had brought the ingredients for a fancy pasta sauce, but unfortunately, the recipe was you know where — locked inside the iPad. The out-of-commission iPad.
“We might have to go out for dinner instead,” I said, “but how will we know where to go?”
The youngest raised his hand.
“We could do a little exploring,” he suggested.
Who would have thought? A novel idea, it turned out.
So we went for a drive. Then we went for a walk on the beach. Then we played charades and Monopoly and gin rummy.
“Who wants to skip stones?” I asked when the card game was over. “Or collect driftwood?”
“Who wants to sit in the hot tub?” asked the husband. “Or toss the Frisbee?”
We all got up and raced outside.
The mail, it turned out, would just have to wait. There were better things to do.
