....so I was thinking.....(3)

I came to realize something about myself this week. I hate cellular phones. Actually, truth is, I hate all phones but particularly cellular phones. I long for a time when we did not need to be reachable constantly, homes generally had only one phone located in a central location, and talking in the car, restaurants, while waiting in line, or the bathroom was not deemed acceptable behavior. I will agree that I have reluctantly become the biggest offender of cell phone etiquette and have not found a time or place where I will not answer my phone or a text message. This is a very recent change in my behavior and come as a result of an immediate reaction to an overwhelming desire to remain in constant contact with someone who was serving our country overseas.

What I have always noticed is that when I do miss a call almost invariably the caller attempts to justify the reason that I may not have answered. Some of my personal favorites are (in no particular order), ‘so you must be ignoring me’ or ‘maybe you are in class’ or ‘I guess you are busy.’ One of my least favorites is ‘I guess you are mad at me or dodging my calls.’ To me and my sensibilities that remark is almost calling me a liar. What amazes me is that if the caller’s repeated attempts are not answered, the second or third messages are even more to the point and become more and more accusational and less excusatory.

Much to my dismay, I became a party to this kind of conduct a few nights ago. I was trying to contact someone who is normally always available to me and to my surprise I received their voicemail. Repeatedly, I tried again and again dialing the number too many times during the course of a couple of hours and then I did it….I left the fateful voicemail. Frustration and irritation rang in my voice as I heard myself say, ‘well I guess you are somewhere without your phone, I hope not a hospital. Maybe something happened to you and you can’t get to your phone, or you lost it.’ In my heart I was really saying, ‘he just doesn’t want to talk to me.’ And, that is when I recognized in my own actions what I loathe from others. The guessing game; the not quite, but almost accusation that I was being ignored on purpose. I immediately sent a text message that I was throwing my phone into the trunk of the car and no more insane messages would come forth, along with a sincere apology for being so dreadfully stupid. Thing is, once a voicemail is left, you can not take it back. It lingers in the air like the stench from a cheap cigar for days.

Ironically, on Sunday evening I was watching a series on television where the co-star kept leaving messages on his girlfriends voicemail, each one more bitter and angry than the last, finally culminating in the final straw of ‘you must be out with someone else, so fuck you.’ Fast forward to the next scene and his girlfriend picks up the phone to find him outraged still, tells him she has been at the hospital with a friend, and basically if he is that insecure in their relationship they were done, finished, over. I can see how this could happen in reality as I almost felt these exact thoughts that were being portrayed on the sit-com. I saw the desperation, felt it, and of course, the disappointment of wanting something so badly and not being able to attain it at that precise moment.

We have become a nation of people who are attention deficit because we are consistently bombarded by technology. Phones, Ipods, PDA’s, so called smart-phones which act as small portable computers for internet, music, games, word processing, calendars, emails, and a multitude of any other programs that only a few years ago were dreams of the computer geeks, now millionaires. I dare to raise the question, however, are we really better off with this technology? Have our lives improved as a result or only become more complicated and reliant on batteries being charged and stroking out if we can not immediately speak to whom we want, when we want.

I may hate cellular phones, but even as I write this page my own ‘smart-phone’ lays comfortably beside me. An extra battery is charged and waiting in the secret spot in my backpack just in case it is needed along beside my Ipod. And, if you really want to laugh my all time high for texting, both incoming and outgoing, in one month was just over 10,000 and I regularly text 5000 or more and use more minutes than the Friends and Family plan ever intended. True, I test the unlimited part of my cellular contract on a monthly basis, and so far it has been truly unlimited.

My point in this reflection is to remind not only myself but others that if you receive voicemail try to be cheerful, leave a brief message, and try your best not to jump to conclusions. I’ll try to follow my own advice next time the situation arises as I’m sure it will; after all, I’m really not nearly as important as I believe myself to be!! And, oddly enough although I hate other peoples voicemail I feel no real issue with not answering my own phone and all too often leave it by itself. Maybe I should be more prudent? Naw……I’ll just continue to be me.