Welcome back, friends, to another installment of Stories from Tina. Grab a coffee, a tea, or whatever beverage helps you tolerate the overwhelming chaos of modern existence. Today, we need to have a very serious, very necessary conversation about boundaries, inner peace, and the little half-moon icon at the top of my phone screen.
If you know me, you know I operate by one fundamental, unbreakable law of communication. It’s my mantra, my personal brand, and my digital boundary all rolled into one. It goes exactly like this: If you need me, I’m only 2 calls away. My phone be on DND so call twice.
I know what you’re thinking. Tina, isn’t the song “One Call Away”? Yes, Charlie Puth, bless his heart, promised he was only one call away to save the day. But Charlie clearly doesn’t suffer from notification fatigue. Charlie clearly doesn’t have an email inbox with 14,302 unread promotional emails from that one candle store he bought something from in 2018. Charlie is built different. I, on the other hand, am hanging by a thread, and that thread is Do Not Disturb mode.
Let’s be honest with each other. We are living in an era where everyone has access to us 24/7, and it is exhausting. Remember the days of the landline? If you weren’t home, you just… weren’t home. People had to leave a message on a little cassette tape and hope you deemed them worthy of a call back after dinner. It was a simpler time.
Now? If my phone isn’t on DND, it is a constant symphony of micro-stressors. It’s a ding from a group chat trying to organize a brunch that will inevitably be canceled. It’s a buzz from a news app telling me the world is ending (again). It’s a ping from my banking app judging me for buying a $7 iced latte.
Leaving your ringer on in this day and age is an extreme sport. It’s acoustic terrorism. And I simply refuse to participate.
Enter Do Not Disturb. The greatest invention of the 21st century. When I swipe down and tap that little crescent moon, my phone transforms from a high-stress command center into a useless, glowing brick. And I love it.
There is a profound, almost spiritual peace in knowing that your phone screen will remain dark, no matter who is trying to reach you. It gives me the illusion of being entirely off the grid. Am I actually off the grid? Absolutely not. I am lying in my bed, horizontally doomscrolling TikTok in the dark like a gremlin. But the world doesn’t know that. To the outside observer, Tina is unreachable. Tina is meditating. Tina is in the mountains without a cell tower in sight.
Now, I am not a monster. I love my family, I care about my friends, and I recognize that emergencies happen. This is why the “Call Twice” bypass exists.
If you don’t know how this works, let me educate you: smartphones have a setting where if the same number calls back within three minutes, it overrides the DND silence and rings out loud. It’s a brilliant feature. It separates the casual “hey, what are you doing?” callers from the “my car is on fire and I need a ride” callers.
But here is the catch, and I need everyone reading this to listen closely: Calling twice is a sacred trust. Do not abuse the bypass.
When my phone actually rings out loud, my soul temporarily leaves my body. My immediate assumption is that someone has been kidnapped, the house is flooding, or the dog learned how to use the stove. My heart rate spikes to 180 BPM. I lunge across the room like an Olympic gymnast to answer it.
Let me tell you a quick story about the time my friend Sarah abused the bypass.
It was a Tuesday night. I was deep in a reality TV marathon, protected by my DND shield. Suddenly, my phone vibrated. I ignored it. Two minutes later—BRINGGGGG.
Panic. Chaos. Adrenaline. I snatched the phone off the table, fully prepared to negotiate a hostage situation.
“HELLO?!” I yelled.
“Hey,” Sarah said, sounding entirely too calm. “Quick question. Did you finish watching that new true crime documentary? I need to know your thoughts on the husband.”
I stared at the wall for a full ten seconds. The husband? “Sarah,” I whispered, my voice trembling with the leftover adrenaline of a phantom crisis. “You invoked the double-call. For a documentary.”
“Well, yeah,” she replied. “I texted you but you didn’t answer. And I knew you were just sitting there.”
She wasn’t wrong, but it was the principle of the matter! We had to have a very long talk about the hierarchy of emergencies. A flat tire? Double-call. You need to vent about a terrible date and you are currently hiding in the restaurant bathroom? Double-call. You want to discuss a TV show at 9 PM on a Tuesday? Send a pigeon.
So, to all my friends, family, acquaintances, and anyone who might ever need to get in touch with me: I am here for you. I support you. I will be your shoulder to cry on and your emergency contact in a pinch.
Just remember the golden rule. I am only two calls away. The first call is for my peace. The second call is for your crisis. Plan accordingly.
Stay undisturbed,
Tina