Cell Phone Hell: The Generation Gap Widens

Cell phones.

On the college campus where I work, I challenge you to find a student who is not walking and talking on his or her cell phone. I would guess 7 out of 10 students are doing such.

And what, maybe 3 out of 5 drivers? It’s not illegal here as far as I know. Yet.

Really, just about everywhere I go, grocery store, movie theater, mall, it doesn’t matter, I see at least one person on their cell phone. At the very least.

So what, right? What business of is this is mine?

I’ll tell you why it’s my business, and I’ll let you in on a little secret:

Did you know that talking on your cell phone gives you automatic privileges and the right to ignore everyone in your path? What happens is that as soon as you commence to talking on your cellular, an invisible bubble engulfs you – a force field if you will, whereupon as you walk or drive, everyone and everything parts out of your path. Pretty fucking cool, huh? The stuff good science fiction is made of!

I didn’t believe it myself, but my husband and I tried a little experiment. We were at JC Penney’s around the Christmas holiday getting pictures of our baby taken. Getting pictures means you wait around forever to get the actual picture shot (if it’s a holiday), then go away for about an hour while Penney’s tries to figure out the best ways to rip you off by forcing you to look at millions of poses of your little baby…way more than you expected or needed to buy. I mean, you’d be a real asshole if you didn’t find the photos adorable and didn’t want to buy all you could.

Anyway, back to the experiment. Matt & I were shopping around waiting for the great photo finish. We noticed that when people were walking around while talking on their cell phones, several things happened:

1) They somehow could not see us, but we could see them! Even with our stroller. When walking towards other cell phone talkers directly in our path, we could tell they were in a very serious conversation, that they could not see us, and so when they came charging towards us, we were forced to dive roll to the side out of their way. That is very hard to do with a baby in a stroller. We were amazed that the stroller would not break the cell phone force field, but it would not.

2) The invisible bubble essentially created a microcosm of the cell phone user’s living room. What this means is that they had complete privacy to talk as loudly as they wanted about anything they wanted, with total disregard to everyone around them, because, they were basically in their own living room

3) Being on their cell phone and in the bubble gave them dibs to just about everything in the store! Cool!


Matt & I were skeptical, as I said. This couldn’t be true. Matt was getting frustrated that we also did not have this power, or rather, that we weren’t using it to it’s fullest potential.

So you know what he did? He got his cell phone out and started in on a fake conversation. He talked very loudly and with authority, as if what he had to say was serious business & required the utmost attention. He did this as I followed him around with the stroller.

I shit you not….people got out of the way! Matt just stormed through the store and everyone moved for us. The bubble really exists!

I normally would protest such asshole moves like this. I mean, we don’t want to be like the rest of the assholes out there. But, it was pretty freaking funny that everyone moved like that, and that we had the power. And to be honest, I was grateful to not be knocked down anymore by other cell phone users. It felt good to just rampage through the store as if we were very important, too.

So, now I believe in the invisible cell phone bubble and it’s immense power. Having this knowledge helps to explain several things to me:

1) Why students feel the need to call someone as soon as they leave class to tell their friends they are going to the next class now.
2) Why said students can cut me off, walk as slow as they want to in front of me in a zig-zag path, and scream in my ear about the party last night to their friends on the phone.
3) Why people answer their cell phones during movies at the theater, and talk as if there is no one around and like they are in their own living room: “Hey dude. I’m watching Spider-man. Yeah, it’s pretty good. Whaddup?” – all in a normal tone of voice! Groovy!
4) Why when people drive while talking on their cell phones they don’t have to obey traffic laws or even drive in a straight line.
5) Why people need to idly chit chat through the aisles of the grocery store, and why I am forced out of the way while they do so.
6) Why in said grocery store, the sneaky folks who use the hidden ear plug thingies always give me dirty looks when I answer them back. I’m breaking their force field, damn it!
7) Why cell phones have to be answered no matter what, no matter what cost, no matter what the circumstance, even when I’m out to dinner with a friend one-on-one, and so I’m forced to sit uncomfortably throughout their conversation while I look like a tool.

You see, I did not know about the cell phone force field. I was just using my phone for emergencies, or to quickly tell Matt when I’d be home, etc. The conversation always had a direct purpose. And I stupidly tried to be polite and respect others’ space, and to be safe about it while driving,

It never occurred to me to use the cell phone while standing at the cash register, or while in the bathroom stall, or while on a date with Matt. Had I known about the invisible force field bubble, I would have wielded this power long ago.

It’s never too late to learn. My next task is to work on keeping up with cell phone sizes. Every time I upgrade to a smaller phone, they get even smaller, and I can’t keep up. My phone always looks gigantic compared to the bubbly little sorority girl’s phone next to me in line at the bookstore.

I’m sure sometime in the future there will be some sort of nanotechnology where the phone will basically be in our body somewhere and we simply control it with our minds. Awesome! As long as the bubble is still a part of the program, and I’m sure it will be.

Scare Tactics

Where does one draw the line between legitimate safety concerns, and all out scare tactics?

I used to love “news” shows like 20/20 and Dateline. I’m not sure if I just got older, or if the shows themselves actually changed. It used to be that these shows had informative, fun, or interesting topics as subject matter.

I stopped watching in the 90’s though when every show’s tagline began with something like this:

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT INK PENS. YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT. NEXT!!!, ON 20/20…

wherein you were forced to watch 20 minutes of commercials before finding out how the dread pen could kill you.

There was a skit about this type of thing on SNL with Jerry Seinfeld as host. It hit the nail on the head, as SNL will do.

Every freaking news show was always about how common household objects, or people on the street, or the neighbor’s cat, could kill you!

I started out at first believing all this shit, as one would do. I mean, this is 20/20. This is Dateline. This is television after all. Television never lies, right? A newsperson always tells the truth, right?

I remember thinking after watching such topics: “OH NO! I’ve GOT to get rid of all of my pens. What if I don’t? I mean, I really can’t do it in a practical sense, so what if I really do get cancer and die?”, then I’d lay in bed all night worrying about the freaking pens.

I am a natural born worrier, you see. It used to control me. Over the years, I have learned to control it. But, like with a drug addict, you don’t want to hang around the drug you are addicted to. I tried to avoid things that produce unnecessary worry at all costs.

The last straw, and when I saw the light, was a Dateline or 20/20 show about halogen lamps. Halogen floor lamps were big in the 90’s, and of course, we had one. The entire show was about how dangerous they are, and how many homes have burned down because of them.

I remember feeling panic in my stomach. I thought we JUST bought the lamp. Should I throw it away? Nah, nothing will happen. But what if it does? OH NO!!!

Then I saw the light, as it were. I thought, enough is enough. I am not going to sit around all day worrying about my house burning down. I will keep the lamp out of contact with the curtain, as any sane person would do anyway. Just remain calm and relaxed about it. Don't get worked up into a frenzy.

From that point forward, I quit watching these shows, and life has been much easier.

The topic has resurfaced though since having a baby. We subscribe to Parenting magazines, but not for long. The issues are filled with various things to be scared of because they will kill your baby. The thing that lit the bulb this time was an article about how basically everything in your house produces dust which can, well not kill, but cause your baby to have severe allergies. This is not a quote, but the general idea:

“There are tiny dust particles everywhere, even after you dust. These particles get into your baby’s lungs and cause allergies. You think you’re doing something good by putting a humidifier in your baby’s room? Think again. When not cleaned properly, all the humidifier does is cause mold of which the spores get into your baby’s lungs and cause asthma…” etc, etc.

At first I thought, “Oh no! I need the humidifier b/c it gets so dry in our house and baby gets sick from that , but we need to keep it clean b/c of the mold spores. I clean it, but what if it’s not clean enough? And the dust, and the cats…my baby!”

Then I got a grip. Listen, I cannot spend day in and day out worrying about the dust in my house. Dust exists. I can’t help it.

This is not to say I don’t do what I can. I do dust. Quite a bit. We vacuum. We clean. We do our best. Our very best. If it’s still not good enough, then we will all die I guess. But I’m not going to ruin my life by worrying about things I cannot control.

This is also not to say there is no value in informing the public of the dangers that may exist, of the newest studies, etc. It’s the way it’s approached that bothers me.

It’s obviously a marketing tactic for mass media. If you know there is going to be a show or article about something that might kill you or your baby, what kind of person are you if you don’t watch or buy it?

The problem is that we don’t know when it’s something to listen to or whether we should dismiss it.

It’s fine to be informed and to file things away in your “need to know” drawer. It’s quite another to worry about your very life and the life of your child over an ink ball pen or a lamp! They don’t have to say it that way, like your house will burn down if you don’t do such and such. Just because it happened to even 50 people doesn’t mean it will happen to you.

Shitty things happen and they always will. There is a difference between a freak accident, and things we could really prevent.

The public buys into this fear factor philosophy, which is why it sells so well. I can't tell you how many forwarded e-mails I get telling me to fear the gas station, the supermarket, the priest, not to mention the fact that if I don't forward the e-mail to 20 people within 20 minutes, I obviously have no friends, I obviously do not care, and I am generally cursed for life. Talk about a scare tactic!

So seriously, where is the line? I refuse to live my life scared as shit over everything that could burn my house down. At the same time, I do not want to ignore important information that could possibly save my loved ones’ lives. Who are what are the valid sources? Who can I trust?