My phone was dead and I was locked out on the streets of New York City.

Read that again. I couldn’t open the door to my temporary place of residence, it was 2 o’clock in the morning and my phone was dead.

Just out of curiosity, how many phone numbers do you know off the top of your head? I remember those of my grandparents, my mom (home and cell), my sister and that’s about it. None of my friends, and certainly no one I knew in New York whom I could call up for assistance.

Obviously I would not call my mother because she lives in Vermont, and also because she’s my mother. She would completely lose her mind and call the NYPD, FBI, CIA and maybe KGB to rescue me from my plight.

It’s amazing how dependent we are on our smartphones these days. A lot of different solutions to this “stranded” problem occurred to me, all of which required the use of an app or Googling something on my iPhone. I could look up the location of an all-night convenience store where I could buy a charger so I could charge my dead phone. I could look up how to pick a lock. I could keep calling my friend incessantly until she woke up and unlocked the door.

When my phone is alive, I don’t really need to remember anything except how to use my phone. But in situations where my phone dies, I’m immediately rendered helpless — wholly incapable of accomplishing anything. It feels as though my entire brain has been rewired since being a kid, when I could reel off the home numbers of all my friends without a second thought.

Do I just need to carry a phone charger around for the rest of my life now, in case of emergency? I spent much of my evening adventure in New York walking from laundromats to delis to all-night Dominican restaurants in search of a charger, to no avail. Six hours out in Manhattan, and not a single place I went was able to help me.

At 5 a.m. I finally discovered an Indian grocery that sold chargers, and a Dunkin’ Donuts, equipped with not only coffee, but an outlet. I could finally charge my phone and replenish my fluids.

It ended up being an interesting night and a fun story I can tell my friends in the future. There were no stabbings, muggings or rabid cats out in the streets.

I actually had some pretty good fortune that night. I ended up making some new friends out and about in Washington Heights, and I discovered that late-night Dominican food is sensational.

But what if it happens again? Or worse, in even less desirable circumstances? To me, it seems as though we need to redevelop the survival skills we (or at least I) lost when the smartphone came into vogue. We can never know when we may be forced to revert back to the Stone Age, without any warning.

Kevin Slack is a senior television, radio and film major. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at khslack@syr.edu and followed on Twitter at @kevinhslack.

Published on April 30, 2013 at 1:00 am