I cleaned out the garage this past weekend. Found three flashlights; we also dug up a few at my parents’ house as we emptied it over the past several months.

I tried, as I stared at one of them this weekend, to remember the last time I’d used one. Maybe 2008? That was the year of the ice storm, when we lost power for a week. Not sure. Seems about right.

The real reason: Phones. I didn’t have a cell phone in February of ’08; I think I got one later that year or the next. Then came a smartphone, one with a flashlight app, which was a breakthrough. Suddenly I had a flashlight with me at all times.

Back in the day, you simply had to have some flashlights around. What if the power went out? What if you needed to peer into the back corner of that space under the stairs? What if you were out fishing after sundown, before sunup? Had to have one in the tacklebox. One under the bed. One in the garage, maybe one in the car.

You had to make sure the batteries were good, too. No use counting on the damn thing in an emergency if they were dead. Sorta like smoke detectors — you had to replace the batteries periodically even if you never used the gadget itself. Always felt like a waste to me, but replacing them also made me feel like a Boy Scout. Prepared.

But now? I’ve quit that task. Whenever I have to shine light into a dark corner, whenever I’m tiptoeing to the bathroom in the middle of the night, trying to avoid stubbing a toe, whenever I have to see which breaker is tripped — I just reach for the phone. It’s always charged anyway, since that’s a top-priority daily habit.

So I pitched all the cheapo plastic jobbies. Kept a single, solitary solid, weighty black Mag-Lite model, just because I can’t quite bring myself to completely convert. What if the power’s out a week again, and we can’t charge phones? What if…I dunno… the robots go rogue and shut down the grid?

I’m not going to worry much about keeping fresh batteries in ours. I know where I keep them, and if the power’s out, I’ll just use the phone to find them. That, dear reader, is what they call a metaphor.

All hail the once-mighty flashlight, whose reign ended a decade ago. His day might come again, but I’m agnostic at best.