Cell Phone Users From Hell

Well, as long as no one’s reading my blog anyway I’m going to rant. If anyone read it they’d be sure to get offended.

I find it fascinating and repelling that more and more Americans (and, for all I know, Brits and Aussies, Germans and Russians are the same) are so important to the continued turning of the earth that they can’t do anything without a cell phone glued to their faces or being plugged into one of those ear thingies that make them look like Uhura on the original Star Trek. They can’t walk down the street, in the mall, sit through a movie or a school program, drive a car, eat, or anything else without the ubiquitous things. I wonder how many have sex and talk on the cell phone at the same time.

Good grief. Is there honestly anything that important, except maybe giving instructions to a hysterical husband who’s stuck in traffic and has to perform a Cesarean delivery on his wife, using only a plastic McDonald’s knife? OK, I grant you there are real emergencies and for these cell phones are a blessing and a life saver. But come on–! How often is that actually the case?

During WWII, my mother told me, they had a slogan “Is this trip necessary?” because of gas rationing. I wish people would think, “Is this call necessary?” when they’re driving (ESPECIALLY when they’re driving). A cell-phone-using driver forced me out of my lane of traffic today, sent me fishtailing into the turning lane to avoid hitting her. For a split second I lost control and narrowly missed hitting an oncoming car head-on. I wonder how important her call really was.

Last week a woman seated in a restaurant about two feet from me felt compelled to call someone and relate every detail of the bloody diarrhea she’d had that morning. Now, I’m not heartless. I’m sorry she had been sick. Truly. But I was sick too by the time her conversation was over. Of course when she finally hung up my appetite was gone but she tucked into a perfectly enormous lunch of what looked like barbecued ribs.

What is this overwhelming need to carry on loud “private” conversations–or what should be private conversations—in public?

American society is getting crasser and more vulgar by the day, and my personal opinion is that a large part of the reason is that there are no standards of privacy or “suitability” anymore. It’s an old saying, but still a good one: there’s a time and a place for everything. I don’t want to know about your bloody diarrhea when I’m eating and I don’t want to hear you cuss at someone over the phone (or in person, for that matter) when I’m shopping for vegetables. I don’t want to be privy to your telephone fights with your significant other because, like Rhett Butler, frankly my dear I don’t give a damn. Let’s bring back some class. Let’s lower the voices. Let’s bring back the notion of keeping private stuff private.

I apologize to anyone who really is so important to the functioning of the world that he or she can’t unplug themselves in public. No offense intended. As for everybody else–get a life!

Now, with my luck, people will actually read my blog and get annoyed. On the other hand, if they’re reading it, maybe they’re not talking on their cells phones.