Friday, August 05, 2011

Cell Phones

I caved earlier this year. I got a smart phone. I'm still not all that convinced that it's worth the monthly data plan. I have ZERO reception at work, thanks to the metal encased room in which I work. My laptop is within 10 feet of me if I'm at home. And I'm boring enough that I spend the vast, vast majority of my time in one of those two places. But I got sucked in to the Android world, and I have to admit, that I do like my shiny little piece of hardware. What I most emphatically do not like are other people's smart phones. Yes, I think it's awesome that every little piece of trivia can be looked up in 30 seconds or less. But when you whip out your phone to fact check every statement in our lunch conversation - requiring the words "let me look that up" to be uttered every five seconds - I am going to be annoyed. I went out to lunch with you, not your iPhone. I think it's wonderful that you are so close to your mom/cousin/Great Aunt Hilda that she sends you a picture to your cell phone every time she buys a new pair of shoes. But the resulting text conversation that lasted for 5 minutes while you kept saying "Sorry, just one more thing" to me? Is the reason we probably won't be hanging out much in the future. Yes, I know you can check your email/Facebook status/Twitter feed with a flick of your thumb. But I didn't make plans with you to watch you bury your face in your phone and make "uh-huh" noises at my conversation attempts. If I'm that boring, I have a simple solution: don't make plans with me. And I always feel sorry for people who are with someone who is clearly with their phone, and just happen to be sharing a booth with their dinner partner. When I was waiting tables - back when cell phones were just phones and not mini computers - I saw arguments about it (not to mention that, even today when phones in general have been around for a year or 100, a lot of people don't realize how much louder they speak on a phone). Gah! You are probably not that important! There are very few people who are. Take 45 minutes to talk to your kid, instead of saying "just draw me a picture" and then talking for 15 minutes about yesterday's round of golf. I am seriously beginning to feel like Ashley Judd in that Star Trek:TNG episode, "The Game". Any minute now, someone is going to hot glue my phone to my hand and wire my eyes open, trying to bring me into the cult. I just hope they slide open the phone so my keyboard is visible first.