One of the best things about cell phones is having a contact list. You never have to remember a phone number. In fact, I don't even know my daughter's cell phone number. I just click on her name, hit send and within a few seconds she answers.

Well last night she had to call me, and luckily she knows my home phone number. As she screamed a mile a minute, she told me that one of the worst things about cell phones is that you can lose your contact list. She was in full panic mode, telling me that her contact list was completely wiped out by accident by her tech guy at work and she doesn't know anyone's phone number. How is she going to call her friends to meet up for dinner? How is she going to call the guy back that she met last week? "It's a total disaster!" she screamed.

Have no fear I told her, Verizon has all your contacts tucked away safely on their cloud with something called Backup Assistant. I called up Verizon and they verified that all my family members have it-except for my daughter. Seems that she never took a minute to go to the Verizon wireless home page and get the backup assistant for her Blackberry.

What would have been a simple task will now be an impossible effort to recreate. Of course, it didn't make her feel better when I told her Verizon Backup Assistant automatically backs up your phone so you always have the last person you added to your contact list.

So the moral of the story is, if you aren't backed up, do it now! And the best part is Verizon doesn't charge for this service. You can call Verizon at (800) 922-0204 and press 3 for technical support and they will walk you through it.

This would be a good time to take a minute to do it for yourself and let your family members, especially your kids, take care of it as well.

Make sure that Verizon has your back so that the next time you or someone you know loses a phone or contact list, you'll still be able to call friends and family without actually knowing their phone numbers.