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I’ve crossed the Rubicon to cell hell in La La Land
Perceptions by Gerry Warner
I’ve finally become one of “them.” You know who I mean. “Them!” Those whose lives are governed by a sinister, rectangular, little box that’s their talisman and governs their every move, directs their daily lives and becomes their dearest companion and confidant.
I’ve purchased my first cell phone and I do mean a “cell” phone, not a “smart” phone. I already have a computer at home and I don’t need one tormenting me in my hand.
You don’t know what an ordeal this has been. Having reached my late 60s, I’ve become a bit of a curmudgeon. Alright, alright, a humungous curmudgeon! Peter Warland has got nothing on me. But I do believe the Luddites had a point when they smashed those early industrial machines. They were on the right track. It’s been downhill for civilization ever since. But I digress.
Yep, I’ve got a cell phone now. A flip top at that. Now I can sit in the stands at Kootenay ICE games and flip it open and closed to my heart’s content and be just as cool as all those hipster fans around me. When the play slows down or a fight breaks out, I can flip that infernal little box open and play a game of my own right in my hand instead of watching the ICE. Do they have Pong on these things? I don’t know, but I’m going to find out. And if Sam Reinhart scores another one of his great goals, I can call the wife and describe the play to her in excruciating detail. I’m sure she’ll be thrilled. I’m even going to get a plastic case for it and wear it on my belt so I don’t lose it. Man, will I look cool. Imagine that. But when I told my 24-year-old son I was going to do this he just rolled his eyes heavenward. Can’t figure that kid out. You’d think he’d appreciate a curmudgeonly dad who was “cool.” He must be studying too much at medical school.
Now there are some things I’m not going to do with my cell. Like take it to a movie, the Key City Theatre or meetings at City Hall. I go ballistic when others do this and the decorum of the event is shattered by Robert Plant wailing ‘Stairway to Heaven’ as the cell nerd reaches for their phone and invariably fails to find it for at least five minutes or more. People should have molten lead poured into their ear for that. Nor will you catch me walking down the street talking to my hand or waiting for a bank machine doing the same as the people around me hear the most intimate details of my life in a voice at least 10 octaves higher than normal.
When I’m in public, my cell phone will stay in its discreet plastic pouch where it belongs no matter how much it beeps, burps or vibrates. And I’ll look so cool! But if you ever catch me taking a ‘selfie’ with my cell you have my absolute and unqualified permission to kick me where it hurts or wrench the diabolical instrument out of my sweaty hand and throw it into the nearest body of water. That’s a promise.
You probably heard about the recent incident where a woman was walking down a wharf in Australia engrossed in Facebook and kept walking right off the end of the dock and was rescued in the water about 20 feet away still clutching her precious phone even though she couldn’t swim. According to US driving statistics, cell phone distraction causes more than 2,500 deaths and 330,000 injuries every year and they are believed to be seriously under-reported at that.
No wonder, I haven’t yet dared to take my cell phone out of the house. To be honest, I’m still trying to figure out how to program the damn thing. There’s soft keys, hard keys, multi-keys, a memory card, a charge port, an address book and I haven’t even got to texting. My mind is swimming!
I’d feel a lot more comfortable if these damn things were still screwed into the wall and had a handle to turn or the portable ones that you had to dial. So if you’re thinking of calling me on my cell, please be patient.
This is going to take a while.
– Gerry Warner is a retired journalist and technophobe as well as a Cranbrook City councillor. His medieval opinions are his own.
