Cell Phone Mania

A lot has been written about cell phones--much of it in a ranting tone. Perhaps this edition of my blog will be no different.

Cell phone users don't get it. We don't want to hear their conversations. We don't want to see their self-important posturing while using their phones. We don't want to be afraid they will zone out while driving and not see our vehicles in front of them. Cell phone usage has gotten out of hand, and I am not referring to the use of headsets. I have recently heard cell phones ring in church, workshops, a 500 person meeting, and the library.

I also recently witnessed (and heard) a loud and rude conversation at the library. The young woman using the cell phone was evidently using a library computer to pay bills for her mother. When she realized she did not have her mother's Social Security Number, she called home and requested it. The mother naturally asked why it was needed, and the daughter rudely suggested if her mother wanted her such-and-such bill paid, she would furnish it. This conversation was shared with all people within a 25 foot radius of the loud mouth. While it was a surprise to even hear this conversation, it was a bigger surprise to see that no one asked the young woman to hold the conversation elsewhere. I suppose they shared my astonishment that the conversation was taking place. While I had a strong desire to tap her on the shoulder and "shush" her, I chickened out. Perhaps I believed that anyone who was so out of it and rude at the same time, would also be rude to me. It was a potentially priceless moment which has now been lost forever.

The ringing of cell phones has occured so frequently in some of our workshops, that we have had to make special announcements requesting that they be turned off or put in silent mode. We also request that any conversations on cell phones be conducted outside the meeting room. Having made these announcements, we still hear the ringing of cell phones and shared conversations.

I have also noticed that when a cell phone rings in a public meeting, and the owner silences it, it almost always rings again within a minute or so. Don't people know from experience that this is bound to happen? So why don't they prepare for the second call and leave the room?

I see cell phones being used equally by men and women. The men I have observed seem to be discussing business matters, more often than social calls. Women seem to use the cell phone more for calls of a social nature, although I have observed both sexes making business and social calls. People on arriving flights at the airport seem to want to make immediate phone calls to someone to communicate their arrival. Who gives a flying screw that you have arrived? Can you be so important that you have to declare your arrival within one minute of exiting the flight? And the inane conversations that take place. "Hello... I can't talk now... I'm in the doctor's examining room, and he is checking my hemorrhoids... He says that I have an abscess, which is causing the 'honda' sound whenever I break wind... He said that they even have a saying in Japan, where he grew up that 'abscess makes the fart go honda'... Call you later... bye."

I used to think that talking on the cell phone while driving was harmless. Then I had a wake up call. My car was nearly hit the other day by the car of a woman using a cell phone. She turned in front of me, never noticing the near miss resulting from her bad driving and cell phone habits. I hope it was a conversation about a serious subject. I would hate to be killed or crippled by someone who was driving while passing along a recipe for zucchini quiche.

Wake up cell phone users. Cell phones are here to stay; however, we need to respect others. If we don't, I can see a time when everyone on the street and in traffic will be using them at the same time and causing a such noise that no one will be able to hear anyone else.