CELL PHONE IMPLANT

My wife and I have a membership at the university gym in town.  We walk the track in the winter time.   We don’t interact with the kids just transmogrifying into adulthood.    We view them as curious creatures with a connection to our DNA, in the same manner we view chimpanzees; as different enough to be considered another species. 

  

We try to arrive at the gym around noon when the students have gone to feed; but the last time we were there was during a peak usage.   It was amazing.  All the student walking the track had their cell phones in their hand or plugged into their ears, the students running the outside of the track were wired into their cell phones, all young people on the exercise bikes had their cell phone balanced atop their display panels or plugged into their ears, one young girl was stretching on a mat while reading her text messages. 

  

Only one; a tiny young girl, running at a demented pace on the Nordic Track, didn’t seem to have a bionic connection to a cell phone.

If a cell phone implant was available, I wonder how many of this new generation would spend the night in the parking lot, waiting for the hospital to open, to be first in line for the implant?

    

OK, I can understand this.  Children, a couple of generations after mine, were raised in front of a television: Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street.   This new generation was introduced to some type of computer before they were even potty trained.

The thing I find curious is the attachment to cell phones for people born before 1970.   These people spent at least thirty years of their life – over half of their life – never knowing what a cell phone was.   They got up in the morning and went to work or school, came home, had supper, watched television and went to bed.  They probably went for days without using a telephone.  If they were traveling, or involved in an activity, and found they needed to communicate by phone, they either waited until they got home or used a public pay telephone. 

 

People fifty and older never suffered by not having immediate and continuous connection to a telephone or the internet.    Yet, today, they can’t sit in a restaurant without checking their cell phone.   Sometimes in restaurants when a person’s cell phone goes off, I feel like standing up and shouting: Turn off your damn phone.  You’re not that important.

  

 My wife and I attend a playhouse in the summer time.  We always go to the Wednesday matinees, which are mainly attended by older people.  At the beginning of each play the stage manager announces to people to turn off their cell phones.     I have never attended a play that at least one cell phone didn’t go off during the performance.

I have got to admit that I have a cell phone, and when we lost electricity during the wind storm last week and our land line was down, I turned it on and called the light company. 

I plug our cell phone in once a month to keep it charged.   In case of an apocalyptic disaster caused by global warming and wiping out civilization, I want to be able to call my friend and tell him: I told you so.

The Ol’Buzzard

CELL PHONE ETIQUETTE

OLD MAN YELLS AT CLOUD

Yesterday I used my cell phone for the second time this year.   I called a small general store for a steak and cheese sandwich to go, on the way home from running errands.  

I got this phone in Alaska in 2005 when I was principal of three Native schools in the southeast tundra.   It was necessary I stay in connect with the schools and the district office whenever I was out of the villages.  

I pay $100 a year for 250 minutes through an Alaska communication company, and have found that I cannot find a comparable offer here in Maine - so I keep the Alaskan phone service.  

At present I have over 2000 minutes available; and though I carry the phone whenever we travel, or I am on the bike (motorcycle,) I never turn it on unless I need to make a call – which is almost never.   I don’t even know how to retrieve messages and missed calls and really don’t give a fuck.   I am not so important that I can’t wait until I get home and check my answering machine or e-mail.

I am not opposed to technology; I use TomTom when I travel, I enjoy the computer and I believe that technology is the only thing that may save the human race at some time in the future.    

But, no one needs to be connected 24/7.   No one needs to be communicating by text or telephone while driving; no one needs to have their phone turned on in a restaurant, movie, playhouse or other public venue.   The idea that anyone needs to sit in a restaurant with friends or family and check their e-mail or text is absurd and ignorant.

 

And, if you walk around with that thing that looks like a leach hanging out of your ear, and you are not an emergency room doctor on call, you are an…

Turn off your cell phone.   You are not that important.

The Ol’Buzzard

CELL PHONE SEX

I recently saw a commercial where a mother hands her cell phone to her young child to keep him occupied while traveling in her car.     The young generation is being indoctrinated to cell phone use at prekindergarten age. 

 

   Without cell phones our society would be crippled and young people would be traumatize.   

The cell phone is no longer a convenience; but has become a necessary connection to the human body.   I wonder how many people would opt for a cell phone implant?

When my wife and I were burning up the bed sheets we use to reach for a cigarette after sex.   I wonder if now the first thought of young couples in the after glow of sex is to reach for their cell phones and check their text messages?

(now after burning up the bed sheets we now take a nap.)

the Ol’Buzzard

  

A LAMENT TO CELL PHONES

According to the Divine Comedy (The Inferno) the eighth circle of hell is full of lawyers.   But, in keeping up with the new technology I feel that at least the fifth circle of hell should have a place for the people who can’t unplug from their cell phones. 

Back in December we finally traded in our old truck for a new fuel efficient car.  The payments stroke us but it needed doing so that my wife will have dependable transportation when I am gone - and this is the last one.   Then two months ago some woman ran into the back of our new car while I was stopped at a stop light.   She was in her late forties and texting to her daughter.  

I am super conscious now of people riding around with a cell phone held up to their ear.   If you drive around your town and watch, at least twenty-percent of the people are talking on cell phones while they are driving in traffic.  If you go into the grocery store, or walk around Wal*Mart you will see people on their cell phones.   Kids walking down the street are talking on their cell phones.   

Phones ring and people talk on their cells at restaurants.   Recently, at a local restaurant six middle aged people at the same table were laughing because they were texting each other, while from a nearby booth we had to listen to a woman talking to friend on her cell. 

 Yesterday my wife and I went to a playhouse.  Before the play started the MC asked everyone to turn off their cell phones - but an hour into the play we had to listen to some elderly woman’s favorite tune digitally explode on her cell phone.   I won’t even mention the school age kids that seem to have a cell phone implanted onto the side of their head. 

What the fuck is this that we cant unplug from our telephones for a couple of hours to sit in a play or a movie or a restaurant.

In the fifth circle of hell I would have cell phones implanted on both ears of the abusers; and every three minutes, twenty-four hours a day, the phone would ring playing Wagner’s Ride of the Valkuries, followed by a recording warning you that your credit card might be overdrawn. 

the Ol’Buzzard hates cell phones.