Bus after bus passed before me.
I was leaning against a fence after school, absorbed in a minute-by-minute ritual: texting my friend about my day.
I looked up, and my bus was nowhere in sight. Late buses are a routine occurrence in Los Angeles, so I kept texting away, figuring I'd see the shadow of the bus on the sidewalk.
While my thumbs banged away on my phone's keypad, I paid no attention to the people around me.
Again, I looked up for a moment and saw my bus approaching, so I started walking toward it.
Out of nowhere, it seems, some guy put his forearm on my neck and pushed me back against the fence I was leaning on.
He grabbed my phone, but there was no way I was going to let him pry it out of my hand.
I did what any self-respecting person would do.
I punched him in the face.
Unfortunately, that punch may have cost me my phone because moments after, he managed to snatch it from me and take off. I ran after him soon realizing that I wasn't going to catch him with all the stuff I had on me. At first I couldn't believe some punk had just run off with my cellphone. Then, I felt the blood rush to my face. I started cursing and punching the fence.
It was my first time getting mugged.
A guy at the bus stop let me borrow his cell phone to call the cops, and, in no time, they arrived and tried to cool me down so they could get a description of the guy.
The cops were surprised that it was my first time getting jacked, and my friends said I was lucky. I would always hear my friends talk about how some guy from the block would pocket-check them. My friend Johnny told my that it was just another part of growing up in the hood. A right of passage almost.
I wondered why it was like this though? Was it that common to get jacked or jumped?
But, I had always managed to defend myself in the past. So what was different this time?
I started to realize that I might have prevented the theft if I hadn't been so absorbed in texting my friend. Because I hadn't even seen the mugger approach me.
There's a name for this type of behavior, which absorbs your attention beyond reason: it's called "intextication."
It's so common that, this year, the New Oxford American Dictionary decided to include it as a new word.
We all know about the dangers of texting while driving, which apparently half of teens admit still doing, according to a recent Pew study. It's so serious a problem that recently, President Obama issued an executive order banning federal employees from texting while driving.
Now, there's talk about the dangers of using cell phones while walking. At first, it might not make sense, but all you have to do is imagine a pedestrian with her head bent low over her phone, about to step into a busy intersection.
Add to those two the highly risky act of texting while standing, and you have the makings of a public health disaster.
Intextication is the new intoxication. And now that I'm phoneless, I've been forced to sober up and kick the habit.
I just hope that getting a new phone won't make me fall off the wagon.
Previously:
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