Monday, December 8, 2008

The Scourge of Cell Phones

I can't tell you how many times a day I begin a conversation with someone and their cell phone rings and I cease to exist. I become invisible and the person's finger goes in one ear (phone in the other ear) to drown out my voice so they can hear the oh-so-important words of someone on the other end asking "what's going on?"

I wonder why people think that whoever is calling on their cell phone is more important than the person they are talking to in person. How many times have you heard "I gotta take this call" and without waiting for an acknowledgement, they proceed to turn away, walk away and never come back. I have had so many conversations left hanging in the middle and it makes me feel like I am the least important thing in the world to that person. I'm pretty sure the auto company whose robot voice telling them that their vehicle warranty is about to expire is a lot more important that I am.

My kids turn their attention to their text messages constantly. I'm sure that if they find a way to implant the phone in the kids hands, they will definitely have it done.

I'm not so attached to it myself. It's in my purse but if I'm not near my purse, I don't care. If I'm at home, I figure if the person wants to talk to me they can call me on the home phone line. I'm also not digging to the bottom of my purse (if you saw my purse you'd understand why) to find that phone. Oh, and I do NOT chat on the cell when I'm in a store. Why do people do that? I am shopping, dammit! I don't have time to talk!

I have a cell phone too and it's very hard not to answer it at times. I do check to see if it's my mom and maybe an emergency. Aside from that, I'm going to try to ignore the cell phone when I'm talking to someone else.

4 comments:

  1. ohhhh, Mar, i have another pet peeve about people and their phones: some of my family members, who shall remain unnamed, will be talking with me, both of us on our cell phones, and then "they" will say: i gotta hang up, it's ____ or ____ calling and damn-it-all, this from the person who called me! once again, thrown on the scrap heap so that the one who called me can cut me off to talk to someone who called her. it just "aint rat" as Aunt Martha always said!

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  2. high five to that Mar. I stop my day to sit in a meeting that someone called and that person constantly interrupts when the cell rings, says "I have go take this", gets up and walks out of the conference room, and more than once, he's talked to a WRONG NUMBER! cause I can hear him!

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  3. We ought to start a movement or something.

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