The Here and Now

I have been out of the world for far too long.
Like the victim of a generation gap I seem to have missed something in this new and shiny world.

I have always thought of myself as a technological person.
I know about these things.
I am addicted to my computer and the internet.
I pride myself on the acquisition of all the newest thing-a-mi-gigs.

Bu then, something happened. There was a shift in the world, and I missed it.

When the hell did cell phones become so freaking annoying?

Granted, I have spent the past two years in a land without cell phone coverage and have therefore grown unaccustomed to their intrusions, but there is still no excuse for this.

Last night I was sitting at a crowded bar with a group of friends. Live music playing loudly in the background, beer flowing freely from several pitchers, and cell phones resting in every hand.

Out of the eight people at my table, 5 of them were on their phones, texting.

I sat in stunned silence, shocked to the core that in a setting as social as this one, the most interesting thing to do was to text other people.

What the hell happened to this world?

Throughout the evening conversations were often broken by musical indicators to a new message. When had to pause our conversation to allow for the response to some technological intrusion.

I was aghast.

I wanted collect up every cell phone at the table in a violent and disrespectful nature and smash them into teeny tiny bits.

During one of these electronic pauses in conversation, I waited for someone to type something of vital importance while I stared at the ceiling and counted tiles.

143, by the way.

I commented, “Man, I must be old, cause I sure do hate these cell phones.”

The terribly texter looked up between letters, “I know, right? Everywhere I look people are using these blasted things. If I had my way, I would throw them all in the freaking river. I mean, whatever happened to actually talking to people!”
The rant was immediately followed by their completion of that text message, the response to three others, and a quick phone call.

There were 279 tiles on the floor.

Maybe I am old, maybe I need immersion therapy to ease myself back into the “real world,” maybe I am just angry because no one calls me anymore, but I find myself missing the days when I lived in something akin to the stone-age.