My eye on the phone--my I-phone.

When does a 'want' become a 'need'? As an economist, I have repeated several times, to my students, and to myself, that demand for something is when we have willingness and ability to pay for that good/service. In this world of cheap credit (is it really that cheap still?), 'ability' to pay for most things, is, typically well taken care off (we will deal with the bankruptcy courts later---lets first dip in the inviting jacuzzi in the bathroom!). Then what we are left with is the 'willingness' to pay for something, which translates into desire to own/use that something. Is it then the intensity of this willingness to pay, that differentiates a 'want' from a 'need'?

I have seen my want become a need recently. With most friends sending e-mails with signature lines of 'sent from my I-phone', and with a brother who is spending many a sleepless nights making and marketing app(s) for the I-phone, it is only understandable that conversations I start from, or receive on, my non-I-phone cell phone, somehow always 'appear' to be lost in translation--yes it is mere appearance, because after all a phone, is a phone, is a phone----it will invariably miss signals when lost in the mountains, and almost always spew whopping roaming charges, when you use the phone even at the Canadian side of the Niagra Falls. Even so, as the pressure builds up on me, and as my husband continues to take me on Saturday outings, on 5th Av, starting at the transparent cube of an iconic Apple store, I have 'evolved'. From considering the I-phones as mere fads, I have now imagined various uses to which my very own I-phone can be put to, from carrying on my online teaching while 'keeping an eye' on kiddo when she plays in the park, to reading/writing(??) books travelling on the subway. And then of course the fanatics (led by my brother?) tell me, almost everyday of some funky app they are superly enjoying. Perhaps I can seek my nirvana in some app too?

Whatever be it, today morning, I heard myself saying to myself---'I need an I-phone'. I was myself surprised at the choice of words of my subconscious, and I take it as an honest desire with an intense willingness to pay. Hubby dear---I hope you have enough ability (to pay).