What’s Everyone Talking About

I must now confess something to my readers. (Both of them) Some time back, about two years ago, I broke down and got a Cellular telephone. Yes, me, the one who has had nothing but bad things to say about the entire cell phone phenomenon since it began, finally went to the dark side. Why, oh why did I do such a dreadful thing?

Well, I’m a cyclist and I frequently ride in areas where public pay phones no longer exist. Hmm, I guess that’s just about everywhere now. Like most cyclists, I have had my share of flats and other mechanical malaise. Like most cyclists, I tend to be self-sufficient, and fix the problem by the side of the road. A little time, and I’m on my merry way again. (Uh, just how do Harley Davidson riders go about changing a flat tire anyway?) I like to ride at night quite a bit, from April until mid-October. It finally did occur to me that a cell phone might be a good thing to have, since pay phones are a relic of the past. An anonymous Verizon tech told me that with the exception of such places as airports and other ‘safe’ indoor places, they are removing the remaining public pay phones. Part of the reason is that they just are no longer profitable. Another reason is that the phone companies simply cannot keep up with the vandalism on the pay phones. Sigh,,, Another piece of America dies.

My phone is a Motorola V60. Nice small phone, easy to read display. No camera, a feature I regard as something the kids like, but something for which I would have little, if any, use. So, the burning question: ‘Do you use it a lot, huh-huh-huh?’ The answer: No, not very much at all. I used it this morning to check my voice mail box, and that was it for today. I’ve never exceeded my ‘minutes’ in the time I’ve had this account, much to the chagrin of Cingular. You should see the junk mail they keep sending me, trying to persuade me to switch to a more costly plan, or ‘Upgrade your phone now!’ Yeah, right. So you see, I have not really embraced the dark side fully. Which brings me to this:

What on earth is everyone talking about?

If you’re like me, then you know right away what I’m talking about. Everyone, and I mean everyone, from grade school kiddies to senior citizens have their cell phones pressed against their ears constantly. Heck, now they even have these earpieces that look like that gizmo Lieutenant Uhura sometimes used while on the bridge of the Enterprise. Last month, I saw a modern generation ‘dude’ strolling along a downtown Cambridge street, gabbing away to no one. I just figured that this was Cambridge, and this is what people do here when they’re not protesting something. Then, I noticed the earpiece. This young dude seemed to be quite agitated, and was speaking loudly enough so that everyone within twenty feet could hear him quite plainly. He ‘didn’t care what her plans were’. ‘No!’ he yelled , louder this time. ‘No! I don’t care!’ At this point, this modern generation dude actually looked crazy. I wondered, just for a few nanoseconds, if maybe that earpiece was not real, but was a non-working toy he bought somewhere. The funny thing was that this drew no attention from anyone. Twenty-five years ago, authorities might have thrown a net over this guy. Today, it’s all part our lives. So what is everyone talking about? I mean really, what is it that simply cannot wait? What is so important that everyone must have their cell phones in constant use? Well, here are some ‘clips’ of conversations I have heard from people on cell phones. You decide just how important these conversations were. (And hear them I do, because everyone seems to be shouting all the time)

In Grocery stores:
‘I’m in the stewed tomatoes now. Yeah. Yeah, the sixteen ounce can? You want the sixteen ounce can?’

‘Do you take the large size, or the small?’ ( This was in the pantyhose aisle. If that guy was married, I’d sure hate to be him when he got home.)

‘There’s no cooking directions on this package of pasta. No, none. Do you know how to do it? No, I don’t see any directions’

‘That bitch better be out of my house when I get back!’ (A woman,yelling. Everyone heard it.)

‘You wouldn’t believe where I had to park. I’m so sore from walking.’

In Drug stores:
‘What color pantyhose did you want? Ooh yeah’ (Male, grinning.)

‘I still feel nauseous. I’m trying to find something for it right now’. (Stay away from that guy. ‘˜nuff said.)

‘Quit being so stupid! No! No! I don’t care! Quit being so stupid!’ (female, screeching.)

While standing in line for movie theater tickets:
‘I bought the tickets, what should I do now?’ (A vacant-looking woman who had just bought tickets to ‘Revenge of the Sith’)

‘Yes, we’re in line. Yes. Yes. We’re in line. The Gap. We’ll go to the Gap later.’
‘Which line should I be in again?’

‘Well I don’t know. No, I don’t know. Yes, we’ll get hot dogs.’

‘Well {dirty word}! She’s a {dirty word}! Yeah, I’ll give it to her alright. {belly laugh} Yeah, right up her {dirty word}’ (This from an enormous man of about fifty, whose pants looked as though they were falling off. And no, he apparently didn’t care if his language offended anyone or not. )

These are just samples. I suspect that many folks out there have heard similar things. Think any of it is important? Do any these conversations sound like something people should be spending their air minutes on? Uh-huh. One can only wonder just what these people did in the pre-cell phone era. So, what are people talking about when they’re driving, and have the phones pressed up to their ears? And again, what did such people do before cell phones? Ahh, questions.’¦

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It’s the end of the world. I’ll bet you didn’t know that. No really, it is. How so?
Well, the Boston area TV weather people told me, yes they did. Yes indeed, a snow storm is forecast for Monday night into Tuesday, (December 5th, into the 6th.) with the ‘potential’ to drop six inches of more onto the Boston area, followed by cold temperatures, possibly as cold as the low 20’s. (Gasp!) Now, a logically thinking person might think ‘Well, this is December, and this is New England, and that’s the way it is. Everyone knows that.’ But not the TV weather people. No sir, they are all jumping up and down, screaming and yelling like it’s the end of the world as we have known it. And as usual, it’s time for me to make my annual rant about them. I swear it just gets worst every year. I think part of the deal now is that for the past two winters, Boston has been hit by good sized storms within the first two weeks of December. Ratings-hungry TV station bosses know this, and they act accordingly. They know that after Thanksgiving, ‘it’s time’. Time to start the hype and hoopla. Thus, the jumping, yelling, video game like graphics, and catch-phrases such as ‘storm trak’, and ‘projected path’. So, I wonder which brand of designer parka (with the station logo clearly visible.) they’ll all have this year? I wonder which of the news babe hotties they’ll have positioned by the side of a busy road, for ‘On-the-spot-coverage of the big storm’?

Guess I should head to the grocery store, and pick up some milk, bread, and D-cell batteries. Or maybe I’ll just head to Home Depot, and get involved in a small riot over the dwindling supply of snow shovels.