Cell phones; they have made all the world a phone booth. Holy crappoly! They are better than Google for learning all there is to know about the following topics; eczema, psoriasis, hemorrhoids, that strange itch that people can get you-know-where, how many times somebody puked on St. Patrick’s Day, gastrointestinal problems, who your neighbor voted for, and the name of your coworker’s friend’s mistress. Oh, and also her cup size, which is amazing (the cup size, not the fact that you heard about it.) You learned that your second grader’s teacher goes to Vegas a lot, and what happened in Vegas did not stay in Vegas. You learned that your boss cheats on his taxes (boom, you just got a raise). You learned about all these things from people in public places talking on their cell phones. Restaurants are especially bad. I went out for breakfast the other day and overheard a lady discussing…well, let’s just say I never did finish that Bloody Mary. And the volume of it all. The lady at the next table in the restaurant held the phone out at arm’s length, in front of her face, with speaker on. She was yelling at the top of her lungs. It was so loud it gave me a headache. I was going to raise objections, but wanted to hear who her sister hooked up with in the broom closet at their office. (Sometimes I get confused about priorities.)
And hemorrhoids; I don’t need to learn about no hemorrhoids from no overheard cell phone conversation. I already know about hemorrhoids. I learned about hemorrhoids the hard way. I don’t want to talk about that no more.
You’re standing in line at the movie theater, waiting to buy tickets for Game Night, when someone on their cell phone gives away the game. So now you know the ending; might as well go home. Look at the bright side, you just saved about ten bucks. (Well I saved twenty, but then I eat a lot of popcorn).
You’re deep into Family Feud on the overhead screen at the airport, trying to figure out what word the survey says best describes your wife’s underpants, when a guy sits next to you having a very loud fight with his girlfriend. But you’re in Orlando and she is in Cleveland. It’s one of those newfangled video calls and he’s holding her up to his face, arguing. You advise him not to bother; she’s so loud you could hear her from Cleveland without benefit of the phone. Now you find an angry female lady screaming at you from inside a two inch screen being pushed into your face. And then he punches you. At least you brought those lovebirds back together.
You’re at the deli in the supermarket, speaking to the guy behind the counter about what you want for dinner. The guy next to you is on his cell with his wife, taking his shopping list over the phone and repeating back everything she tells him. You tell the deli guy, “I’ll have cheddar, sliced sandwich thick.” The deli guy says, “Cheddar?” The cell phone guy says, “Pepperjack.” The deli guy says, “Pepperjack?” You say, “No, cheddar.” The cell phone guy tells his wife, “But maybe I’d like provolone for a change.” The deli guy says, “Okay, provolone it is.” “No”, you say, “I want cheddar.” “Okay, okay, make up your mind will you Jack?” “No, not jack”, says the cell phone guy, “I said pepperjack. You work in the deli, don’t you know the difference between jack and pepperjack? What’s the matter with you, anyway.” The matter is, mister, that you think this deli counter is a #%&#’ing telephone booth. And then you punch him.
But it isn’t just the speaking on the cell phones. It’s every yutz and klutz in the country texting and driving. I happen to have a rather large van, and I can see down into the cars driving by. Fifty percent of them are either texting or looking at pictures of naked women. Just the other day I saw a guy looking at pictures of naked women, weaving all over the expressway. Am I sure that is what he was doing, you want to know? You better believe it. I pulled up alongside him for five miles, and oh yeah, you betcha! (Sometimes I get confused about priorities.)
Of course cell phones can be useful while driving. They all have built in navigation apps these days, so that you can find the best route. But mine seems to equate best route with shortest route. Like last summer when my cell phone took me on a 45 minute drive through downtown Madison instead of the ten miles of bypass on the expressway. I turned it off when it took me, my huge van, and my 24 foot travel trailer into a drive-through lane at the McDonalds because it was fifteen feet shorter that way. But that’s not the worst part of this story. The worst part of this story is that I had been listening to the advice of my cell phone, instead of my wife sitting right there in the passenger seat. Have you ever heard that saying, “My mama didn’t raise no fools?” I regret to report that nobody ever said that about my dear mama.
I suppose I have to learn to take things more in stride, to be more relaxed, and more accepting of the future. And the future seems to be everybody in the country walking around wearing earbuds and holding their phones in front of their faces so they can’t see where they’re going. They’ll just be jibber-jabbering away, bouncing off walls and light posts and into each other. It could be kind of fun. If you want to meet new people, you just go out on the street and stand there until somebody bumps into you. Of course, if you want to strike up a conversation, you’ll have to call them up.
Imagine if cell phones had been invented thirty years earlier. It would have changed everything. Well maybe not everything, just all this stuff right here.