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Commentary
Cell phones cause societal hell
By John Behling
Published:
Monday, February 10, 2003
John Behling -- Staff Essay
I'm nervous, sweating, biting my finger nails, the flat colorless carpet of my bedroom floor is beginning to adopt a racetrack shaped wear mark from my constant pacing.
There's that tight feeling in my chest like I'm under some life threatening deadline. I'm clutching the phone handset, pinning it tightly against my right ear as the elevator music tries to make my waiting experience a pleasant one. A tape recorded message chimes in every minute or so telling me quite obviously that my call is important to their company and that the call will be answered in the order that it was received.
Right now I'm thinking that I'm the absolute last person in the world waiting in line to talk to customer service and conjures up the image of billions of people worldwide, nervous, panicked, pacing, waiting to the insufferable melodies of hack studio musicians punctuated by the hollow reassurances of a mechanical corporate voice reciting its prerecorded mantra.
For anyone who's ever had a problem with their cell phone bill, this scenario should be familiar. There's nothing worse than opening your monthly statement to the discovery that your life savings are now owed to that faceless corporation behind the little device with the lcd screen, the nub of an antenna and the multi-tonal ringer which proudly announces your love for "Papa Roach's Last Resort" every time someone has the urge to contact you.
Cell phones have taken the sacred rite of communication and defaced it into a public, meaningless and tediously unnecessary enterprise. Now, every time I'm in the video store there's the guy standing next to me walking down the isle describing every title into his cell phone to confer with his girlfriend on the night's rental. Now, every time I'm in a movie at least one phone goes off, usually the one with the most annoying ring tone, and some people even have the nerve to answer.
"Hi. I'm in the movie. Yeah, it's the one with the guy. No. Not that guy. A different guy. Yeah. What are you up to. Really? That's cool."
No place is sacred, and the next dimension of this science fiction nightmare is the end of memory. Why write down a shopping list if you can call your wife from Aisle Four at the supermarket and ask her what kind of canned peas she needs to make casserole? Why bother taking down directions when you can call as you drive blindly though your friend's neighborhood arbitrarily describing trees, gas station signs and people you see walking down the street?
Don't forget the dissolution of the private conversation. People feel alarmingly safe when they're on their cell phones, sitting on buses, walking through Wal-Mart or waiting in line. They'll discuss their personal life in great detail as if no one can hear them. Or even more aggravating are those who discuss their professional life while power pacing through Cub Foods, yelling into their cell phone like they're standing on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange.
"This is not acceptable, tell David that he has to use the RU-79 special action requisition form. No, Form B. Yes. No. Yes."
Everyone has a cell phone. And eventually everyone who has a cell phone will be in debt of the cell phone companies; this is simply unavoidable.
The cell phone is the new credit card max out your bill with one company and move to the next, never stop talking, never miss a beat. The cell phone is the new cigarette; if a study came out today proclaiming that cell phones caused gigantic puss-spewing cancerous tumors on our foreheads, would everyone stop using cell phones? They wouldn't -- and like the old man with the respirator tube in his nose still smoking a cigarette, we'll simply wrap our heads in gauze and keep walking urgently into the fray.
Scared now? So am I, standing here, still on hold, wondering how much I can get for my TV at the pawn shop, wondering which organs I can sell on eBay, and wondering why, if I have such a problem with cell phones, do I still have a cell phone?
