The Cellphone Talker

[DickZ]

The Cellphone Talker, Part 1

“Yes Frank I know you’re on your way to the baseball game but I’m in the dairy section right now and then I’m going to the meat section and then I’m going to the bakery section and then I’m going to the pharmacy section and then I’m going to go to the checkout and when I get to the checkout I’ll tell you all the things I bought but I have to tell you a story before I get too wrapped up in my route through the grocery store and what I bought because if I tell you everything I bought before I tell you my story I might forget the story – this strange guy was buying four of those bags they sell for 99 cents each to carry your groceries home in and I was wearing my “Save the Planet” t-shirt that I really like because as you know I’m very much into ecology and conservation and all those things they talk about on television when I’m not talking on my cellphone and I asked this guy why he was buying those bags when you could get plastic bags for free at the checkout counter and he said he didn’t want all those free plastic bags that they give you and then he had the nerve to ask me about my “Save the Planet” t-shirt and he asked me how much I was willing to pay to help save the planet and I said certainly not as much as four dollars and so he asked me if I was for or against saving gasoline and I said I was for saving gasoline as long as I wasn’t the one who had to do the saving and then he asked me if I was for or against saving electricity and I said I was for saving electricity as long as someone else was doing the saving because I have to use gasoline and electricity and I think if we are going to save the planet someone else has to stop using so much as long as it isn’t me because I have to keep using them and I’d like to know what kind of moron thinks I’m going to start saving gasoline and electricity because I need those things and if everybody else stopped using them then I could keep using them and we wouldn’t have this crisis with gasoline and electricity and clean air and global warming but I have to keep using gasoline and electricity so I hope everybody else will realize how important it is for them to stop using them so I can keep on using them but hang on a second because I have to open up another couple of sticks of gum because I was talking so much my other piece of gum just shot right out of my mouth and went onto the grocery store floor but I’m not going to pick it up because it’s probably dirty now and I don’t understand how my gum could have possibly shot right out of my mouth but I have to stop talking long enough to put another piece of gum into my mouth and there I did it and I’m sorry I took so long to do it and I couldn’t keep talking to you while I was doing it and did I ever tell you I’m really grateful to have someone like you who doesn’t have anything better to do than to listen to me talk on my cellphone and I’m in the bakery now and I’m going to get a couple of rye breads I think I’ll get one with seeds and one without and then I’m going to get a cheesecake but I don’t like to get those frozen cheesecakes because then you have to thaw them out before you eat them and I like them a lot better when you don’t have to thaw them out and did I ever tell you how important it is to exercise your jaw so it doesn’t get tired when you talk so I exercise mine all the time now and I can keep talking and my jaw doesn’t even get tired like it used to do before I started on this exercise your jaw program…….”

To be continued in Part 2 but maybe you need a breather.

[AuntShecky]

Ah, this was good. It reminded me of works by Dorothy Parker and Ring Lardner (the latter of whom I've been oft quoting lately.) This isn't to say that your story is in any way quaint or outdated or belongs to the era of the Roaring
Twenties. Au contraire -- it is up-to-the-minute, cutting edge shall we say? This is EXACTLY what one would hear in the aisle of a supermarket on any given day. You've got it down.
And to those who worry about ephemera, or the risk of choosing topics that are too "acutely current" (to use a phrase from the editors of Mad magazine) : just last night I read a passage from Samuel Butler's The Way of All Flesh (another writer I've been quoting much lately)in which he states (through one of his characters):

" A faithful rendering of contemporary life is the very quality which gives its most permanent interest to any work of fiction, whether in literature or painting."

[Lonesome Cowboy]

Nice work DickyZ!!!! Gotta catch my breath, whew!

[ampoule]

Oh my gosh! This is wonderful and I do appreciate the breather. I know several women who can talk without taking a breath. It is truly amazing.
Very good DickZ.
Oh, and welcome. Nice kitty cat. It looks like my son's, the one I am always trying to kittynap.

[DickZ]

The Cellphone Talker, Part 2

All of mankind is divided into two groups - those who think the entire world is their personal phonebooth, and those who don’t. Neither group understands the other in the least. You probably don’t have to work too hard to figure out which group I’m in.

Cellphone talkers will sit in a public place totally surrounded by strangers and talk as if they were in soundproof isolation. They don’t seem to be the least bit embarrassed about revealing to total strangers all kinds of secrets that these strangers really shouldn’t know. I don’t know if the cellphone talkers think that nobody is listening to them or what, but hearing a woman on the subway telling whatever it is on the other end of the line all about her yeast infection or the painful boil on her right inner thigh seems to go beyond the pale of common sense. Whatever it is on the other end of the line can decide for itself whether it wants to hear the rest of the story – but the rest of us don’t seem to have a choice. Sometimes in the subway, if the car isn’t too full you can just move to a more distant seat, but during rush hour when we’re all packed in there like sardines, we have to just stand there and take it.

Now before you conclude that I’m living in the Dark Ages or something, I should say that I actually own a cellphone and I certainly appreciate its incredible value. I keep it in the glove compartment of my car when I’m driving somewhere, and I carry it with me when I’m taking the subway. I always make sure it’s charged up enough to last a while. I don’t have a holster for it and I hope I never will - but I recognize that it’s nice to have the phone with me. I only use it if something happens that requires my using it. And making idle chatter in the midst of total strangers is not my idea of a required conversation.

I don’t go to that many movies anymore because I think very few of the current movies are really worth seeing, so I’ve never actually encountered a cellphone talker inside the theater. I have heard about such incidents, however, particularly with teenagers who will sit there babbling for the entire movie telling a nitwit on the other end everything that happens on the screen. Now I think the probability of my watching a movie that a teenager has to describe as it unfolds to some other teenager is about the same as the likelihood of my having a date with Brittney Spears – or even wanting one. So hopefully I can keep from actually hearing someone talk on their phone during a movie.

I understand the Amtrak Metroliner that goes between Washington, DC and New York has cars designated as “NO CELLPHONES ALLOWED” and that there are stampedes to get onto those cars, so I’m probably not the only person on earth who dislikes the concept that “The world is my personal phonebooth.”

It always bothers me to see people walking around the streets with their eyes constantly on the screen of some hand-held device. I still don’t understand what this is all about. I hope it’s not the text messaging I have heard about that is apparently so popular among teenagers, because most of these people I’m talking about look like adults. It’s fine if teenagers send each other messages that say ADIH, which means “another day in hell,” or ALOTBSOL, which means “always look on the bright side of life” because most teenagers have nothing useful to do anyway so they can spend all day exchanging meaningless junk.

Just how often does the need to say ALOTSBSOL come up that they have to create an acronym for it? If you’re saying that as often as once a week, maybe you’re communicating with the wrong people, or maybe you’re using the wrong form of communication, or maybe you should shut down your communications altogether and learn something useful instead. Apparently there are at least 1,200 acronyms. It sounds like someone could come up with a more valuable way to spend their time than learning 1,200 acronyms that don’t convey any useful information. I can understand having maybe 20 acronyms, but 1,200?

I’ve heard that several of these people who can’t take their eyes off their screens have been run over by cars in Manhattan because the drivers there don’t have enough patience to check out each pedestrian with enough care to determine whether or not he is looking where he is going. And a few of them have actually wound up dead afterwards. I know that someday somebody will write an obituary for me, but I sure hope it doesn’t say “run over by garbage truck while reading his cellphone screen.”

I have no idea why adults would have anything to do with this text messaging stuff, though. So hopefully what they are looking at on their screens as they cross the street are e-mail messages. I don’t think I’ve yet seen an e-mail that is worth getting killed over. I guess I just don’t know any exciting e-mailers.

I’ve even encountered people who take their cellphones with them into a public restroom and carry on conversations while they are sitting on the toilet. This really boggles my mind, maybe even more than the others. They have no idea who is standing outside their makeshift ‘phonebooths.’ And there are other issues that I’m not even going to mention that would apply here.

And while people used to like going on vacations so they could ‘get away’ from constant phone calls, now they even bring their cellphones to the swimming pool or to the beach. And they leave the phones turned on.

Very frequently at my health club, you can hear a cellphone ringing inside a locked locker. Now even I don’t find any fault with that, because usually it stops ringing after two or three rings and a voice mail system presumably takes over. But every now and then, a strange situation comes up. Sometimes a phone locked in a locker will ring, and then another 30 seconds later it will ring again, and then another 30 seconds later it will ring again, and then another 30 seconds later it will ring again, and then another 30 seconds later it will ring again, and then another 30 seconds later it will ring again, and then another 30 seconds later it will ring again, so you have to wonder why the caller can’t just leave a message or something? Or how many times will the caller keep trying? Or why the caller isn't locked up in a padded cell somewhere?

And then there was once that a phone locked in a locker rang constantly for over five minutes. It never stopped, or even slowed down.

Maybe someone can explain it to me in terms that even I could understand.

THE END

[AuntShecky]

I do think people brandish cell phones and let 'em ring so others will think that they are so important that they can't be beyond reach even for a few moments each day.

[TheFifthElement]

Wow! Loved the first part, it really left me breathless, and it says so much without saying anything much at all. Fantastic!

Part 2 was great too - very insightful. Yes, mobile phones are a blot, they are inconvenient and intrusive. I don't think you're in the dark ages at all, perhaps you just appreciate the art of conversation more than the expenditure of words.

[Rover]

Great relfexion on cellphones! Part 1 was probably the longest sentence I ever read...The only thing that bugged me a little were the stereotypes (with teenagers and their acronyms), but the depiction of the people "who think the entire world is their personal phonebooth" was hilarious :)

[Nighteyes5678]

While part one was a very nice, long sentence, I think it could have used with some punctuation to help with the readability. Yes, I know that it was supposed to be read in one long stream of consciousness, but I think it was a little long to have its intended impact if it was intended to go with the second part.

The second piece was quite a bit of fun to read, though I'm starting to thank various fates that I've missed cell phone users described within it.