The woman eyed me suspiciously over her mask, and picked up her tape gun just in case.

My phone is in this box, and since its not quite safe to take an actual vacation, Im trying to give my brain one by sending my phone on a trip cross-country, I explained. Id like it to go ground, so it can see America. Have you read Kerouac?

I could sense the clerk was trying to decide if I was dangerous or just dumb, so I quickly paid my $31.85 it turns out its weirdly complicated and expensive to make a package travel slowly and hustled through the glass doors with a pep in my step.

What would I do with myself now that I was no longer a cyborg hooked permanently to most of the worlds knowledge and every one of its complaints?

That question was still going through my mind as I arrived at my house a few minutes later and immediately got on my computer to check my e-mail and Google Did I miss anything?

It always takes time to settle into a vacation, and when I awoke the following morning I instinctively reached for my phone in its usual place on the nightstand. Instead I felt the strangest thing: a book.

The book did not have a built-in clock, so I went to my kitchen, looked at the time on the microwave, then kinda stood there trying to remember what we did in the mornings in the 20th century. I think maybe we milked animals.

I resisted the urge to go on my computer or turn on the television, so I opened that book thing and began to read. This lasted for nearly three pages before my attention span wore out. But I remembered that I owned many more books that I had also not read, so I went to my shelves and started pulling down volumes. The new me was going to be so much better than the old me, I promised myself. And this was only the beginning; ahead of me were days and days of such lies.

This included the vow that I would spend more quality time with my family. Which I did, if you count my children hovering around me and repeating the phrase You just keep using mamas phone when Id ignore their requests for ridiculous things like my undivided attention or food.

I only use her phone when its something important, Id correct them as I checked the weather and the latest memes.

To truly feel the freedom, then, I had to go out into the world, alone. My wife dropped me at the beach one day so she could have a vacation from me, and I had to stay there until she picked me up at a specified time and place. A specified time and place! It was like the 90s.

Another time I went to the grocery store alone, armed only with a printed list. I felt as vulnerable and exposed to the world as someone climbing Mount Everest. Normally, Id be able to text my wife constant questions like: What is okra? Instead, I had to ask for the help of other humans. Other humans!

I survived. But it was moments like those that taught me what it truly meant to live phone-less in the modern world. It was not zen. It was not the key to being more present. It did not make all the bad news and Kardashians disappear.

No, it was about being a chore to everyone else in your life. Not a single day went by where my experiment did not create a headache for someone else. This included strangers. Picture me walking up to you in a mask and shouting: Is this okra?

I had thought the experiment would end with me quitting my smartphone forever. At the very least, I thought Id trade it in for a flip phone. Instead, it forced me to accept that my phone is both the cause of my issues and the only thing that cures them.

My phone returned on a Thursday. It had been gone for 11 days. Where had it traveled? I have no idea. Id strapped it to a giant battery pack so I could track its movements. But like everything else to do with this experiment, that had failed almost immediately, at a truck stop somewhere in central Pennsylvania. And if theres anything sadder than realizing you cant live without your phone, it is central Pennsylvania.

Hopefully my phone went on to more exciting places. Hopefully I will too, when all this is over. In the meantime, Ill be dumb-thumbing my way through the Internet, searching for another answer.

Its probably on page four of one of these books. Too bad Ill never get that far.

Billy Baker can be reached at billy.baker@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @billy_baker.

See more here:

To give myself a vacation, I sent my phone on a trip - The Boston Globe