“It’s the moment of truth: Could you part with your Blackberry? If you don’t have one, thank your lucky stars. If you have one, you know, as I do, that you can’t. In fact, minutes after you set up your e-mail, you wondered – often aloud – how you’ve survived without one before now.”
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It’s the moment of truth: Could you part with your Blackberry?

If you don’t have one, thank your lucky stars.

If you have one, you know, as I do, that you can’t.

In fact, minutes after you set up your e-mail, you wondered – often aloud – how you’ve survived without one before now.

Problem is, President-Elect Barack Obama is about to find out what life is like without that umbilical cord.

It turns out, giving up your Blackberry is part of the presidential package.

Say what?

Well, thanks to the Presidential Records Act, all correspondence from the president is public record. In practical terms, that means that no president thus far has used e-mail while in office.

The Blackberry is a marvelous invention. When I got mine, it was like the heavens had parted.

I balked when my cell phone provider told me that I would pay $30 each month – on top of my regular bill – for the data service to make full use of my Blackberry.

Yet I said OK. And I haven’t looked back since.

After all, you never know when you need to update your Facebook status or check your friend’s MySpace page. And what if you can’t find the martini bar where you’re supposed to meet your friends?

On Election Day, I checked results on CNN. On my Blackberry.

After debating the release date of The Wizard of Oz, I found the answer (1939, by the way) on my Blackberry.

One night while playing Quizzo (trivia game played at a bar for lame prizes … unless you count bragging rights, which we all do), I tried to find the answer to a question on my Blackberry. I abandoned my quest when I was informed it was illegal, but you get the point.

For the sake of full disclosure, I needed to know how many spaces are in each triangle on a Chinese Checker board. That’s a tough one.

Let’s not even discuss e-mail. How can you function unless you’re reading and responding to messages in real time?

If someone told me that I could no longer use my Blackberry, I’d have a problem. Most of us would.

How we managed pre-Blackberry is but a faint memory. It’s probably safe to say that we won’t relive that, as parting with a Blackberry is simply not an option.

If it weren’t for all the solving the nation’s problems stuff that Obama has to deal with, I’d say that his post-Blackberry life would be a lot easier.

I’ll save you the trouble of checking your Blackberry: There are 10 spaces in each Chinese Checker triangle.

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