Here I am, one early Saturday afternoon driving down the freeway, headed for one of those big box stores because they’re having a sale on fertilizer. Four dollars a bag for 40 pounds of B.S. Five bucks for a 50 pound of Chicken Stuff. I cleaned that up to keep my PG-13 rating. There’s something wrong with this picture. All that to grow tomatoes and vegetables that the deer and damn squirrels consume. I know, you literary types or English majors are saying “that is a fragmented sentence.” I don’t care! I have a fragmented brain.
Anyway, I’m cruising along, doing about 65 mph in my Ford 150. (Made in Canada, but got a “fed loan” to save our auto industry. What Province in Canada is Detroit in? Say what?) Three or four cars passed me, and I glanced over and I see each driver on the cell phone yakking away or texting. In one case, a guy is lighting a cigarette as well, and in another, the gal is brushing her hair. So what the hell are they steering with? The only thing I can think of is their knees. Now this is Saturday, so it really is not business or something urgent, which is no excuse, and is likely to be strictly social. In my state, we have a hands-free law, but I’m beginning to think that means the driver doesn’t necessarily have to hold onto the steering wheel.
I’m not sure what the hands-free law says, but I do know that it says you’re not supposed to text or talk on a cell phone while driving. The alternative is to have a headset, I guess it’s called Bluetooth. My definition of Bluetooth is that it’s usually something you get after getting hit the mouth or your dentist kills most of the nerves in one of your molars. The problem with these headsets is that if you’re the listener it sounds like caller is talking from the bottom of a barrel. They fade in and out, and half the time I can’t understand what they’re saying and I have to keep asking them to repeat. This gets a little frustrating because what we have are disjointed conversations and it’s highly possible that I’ve missed something important and don’t even know it.
I guess cell phones can get distracting. A few months ago I was driving in a residential area and came to a stop sign behind an SUV. I sat there for a minute and the SUV did not move, even though there was no other traffic and the stop sign makes no sense anyway. I thought possibly the car was having some trouble and then I noticed a lady apparently talking on her cell phone. Being the polite and patient person that I waited for a minute or two for this lady get it in gear, so to speak. Nothing happened! Clearly, she was a oblivious to the fact that there was a car sitting behind her. I have a real polite horn and I beeped it. The next thing I know is the door to the SUV opens up and out pops the lady, phone still in hand. She walks up to my car and kicks it in the left front tire. She went back to her expensive SUV and left. I I laughed all the way home.
The other scary thing is a few weeks ago I was at the grocery store trying to figure out what kind of meat I wanted to have for dinner. There was a young lady next to me talking and I turned my head and said “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand.” She gave me a look like I was a dirty old man, maybe hitting on her, and then I noticed this black thing hung on her ear and a small microphone. I should’ve flashed her, but I wasn’t wearing my raincoat. I suspect she was calling home to find out what was needed for dinner. Had she been as organized as Blue-eyes, she would’ve made a list, but based on my immediate evaluation of this lady I decided that she either would’ve forgotten it or couldn’t write. People that wear those funny little ear things should be concerned about two things: first — having a permanently deformed ear, and the other — trying to figure out what all that low-level RF is doing to their brain.
I find the various cell phone carriers names rather interesting. As an example, Sprint is a track/field term – usually not more than 100 yards. Com-cast in my mind is a flyfishing term. Exfinity was uttered by Cmdr. Buzz in Toy Story number one. “Exfinity and beyond.” No, I’m wrong! That was “Infinity and Beyond.” The only one that got it right was AT&T and U-verse. That one suggests that if you have a problem it’s “YOU-Versus AT&T.”
From a social perspective, I’m beginning to wonder where our society is going. As an example, when I go downtown to the local specialized coffee boutique in order to get my normal double latte, decaf, with non-lactose, nondairy mixture and Sage-produced honey only (256 different blends), I am amazed that everyone in the store is either talking on a cell phone or texting, or doing something with their pocket-sized computer or whatever. Where one would normally expect conversations, there is nothing but silence. Sometimes, I sit outside watching people walking down the street texting or talking on the phone and running into other people talking or texting on their cell phone, who have just run into a light pole or a fire hydrant or crossing the street, knocking down to little old ladies from Pasadena and causing a five car pileup.
I noticed two or three people, clearly together for coffee, all texting or whatever. I sit there and wonder – are they texting each other? I suspect they are! The thing I’m fascinated by is these people taking their cell phones, snapping a picture and then showing the picture to the other person. I have come to the conclusion that the only reason they do that is to prove that they were both at the same place at the same time, because clearly since they haven’t been talking to each other, without this evidence they would never have known that the other person was there.
Now, I have to confess, obviously I blog. It’s a habit like smoking or drinking, but I haven’t found any clinically introduced medical or non-medical solutions, other than possibly smoking a “joint,” which I think would only add to this abstraction. But I am willing to try. Talk to your local law enforcement agency to determine if you’re safe from federal prosecution state prosecution, local prosecution or possibly intergalactic prosecution. Until introduced to blogging (not pot, although I suspect I could’ve been), provided by one of my over-educated children, I thought a blog and blogging was something out of a science fiction novel. Like maybe Tron or Dune or whatever. “I saw this massive creature creeping toward me with six legs and 14 arms and a huge blog.” You should assume that the blog was some kind of space creature’s appendage. Keep it clean!
I sure as hell would not use my real name, for obvious reasons. Don’t think for one minute that I am a social misfit, totally against scientific advancement. Unfortunately, I helped create it, but I’m beginning to wonder if I should change my name to Dr. Frankenstein along with the rest of our generation of technical nerdy groupies. I know! You younger folks think us older folks have a tough time accepting change. Don’t underestimate the over-60 group. Keep in mind, we set the stage for this massive potential set of technological tools.
Moral of the story – There is no moral, just an observation. One of the more enlightened statements made by Adlai Stevenson was “television is a vast wasteland,” and he said it in 1960 prior to running for president. I wonder what he would say about today’s Internet?
J.J. Addingnuttin 