"CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW!" Someone shouted as I was walking through a shopping mall. "Yes, I can hear you...loud and clear," I replied.
The person must had thought I was deaf because he walked a few feet further and shouted again, "CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW!" I then realized he wasn't talking to me. Maybe he was trying to get in touch with God, because he was holding a strange small black gadget to his ear and talking to no one in sight.
That was my first encounter with the cell phone. When I finally realized what he was doing, I had a feeling right then that cell phones and I were not going to have a pleasant relationship. Almost overnight it seemed an awful lot of people were walking around shouting "CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW." All of a sudden, to be important, you had to have a cell phone. So now, everyone has no choise but to listen to everyone's conversations everywhere we go.
People are now on the phone holding up the line at the bank, at the grocery store, almost everywhere I go. There is always someone disturbing my peaceful meal while dining at a restaurant, in the middle of my golf swing, at an exciting moment during a movie, or interrupting a conversation we were having. Perphaps the most irritating of all is having to listen to the dude in a public restroom announce to his caller he has diarrhea. Most cell phone users seem to have no clue that those around them might not want to hear their conversation. If you mention this to them, they look at you as if you are some kind of a nut.
Poor Superman. He has no place to change, because phone booths no longer exist.
Cell phone addiction is probably more addictive than drugs, tobacco, and alcohol combined. Teenagers will knock off their parents if they should even think about taking their phone away as a punishment. Before you know it, little Johnny will be demanding a phone as soon as he learns to talk.
These small communication devices have caused big communication problems. My dad whistled outside when supper was ready. Today's dad has to text the kids, in their separate bedrooms, to come get their dinner. Face to face conversations are about as dead as a door nail. Driving has become bumper car road rage.
People of the world have become slaves to these electronic gadgets. They are compelled to answer every call as if it were an emergency, or play every one of those silly games, or take that once in a lifetime photo. What's a old fart like me to do? I don't have nor want one of those bothersome smart gadgets. Should I submit and join those addicted, or don't give in to the temptation and stay a free sane man?
I don't know how much longer I'll be able to hold out. My family and friends insist that I join in their addicted slave world. They become irritated when they get the recorder on my land line. I say what has worked for me in the past, will work for me in the future. That could put me in the Guinness World Book of Records or at the very least, a Ripley's Believe It or Not candidate, for being the only dumb person on earth without a cell phone.
"You talk too much...you worry me to death. You even worry my pet. You talk about people that you don't know. You talk about people wherever you go. You talk about people you've never seen. You can make me scream. You just talk too much..."
Excerpt from my first book, 'The Comeback Kid, Memoirs of Thomas L. Hay'. There are lots of interesting stories like this one. Available on Amazon: http://www.amzn.to/1bWV44N or Smashwords: http://bit.ly/17yuDiz
