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Digital Slob Curt Brandao |
When cell’s earpiece
is on, brain turns offThis week, we continue with Part Four of "10 Stupid Things Respectable People Do to Mess Up the World."
No. 7 -- Cellular gaffing: Perhaps nothing has performed a more insane extreme makeover on the world than cell phones and cell phone headsets.
Ear buds make us all look at least a little crazy. Whether we skipped our medication, or not; whether we're a spiritual leader and all our followers have shaved heads, or not; whether we host a psychic show called "Crossing Over With John Edward" and we are John Edward, or not -- now everyone has voices in their heads.
But when Respectable People stick headsets into their ears in public, it must mess up their optics, because they quickly lose all perspective on social norms.
Don't dare walk up and ask them for the time unless your eyes like the taste of pepper spray. But feel free to stand right behind them in line as they talk on their cell, because they won't feel the least bit inhibited detailing (loudly) the hues of whatever they coughed up that morning to someone who has the bad luck to be within signal range and, odds are, has no more interest in the harrowing tale than you.
In fact, the only way to distinguish cell-phone toting Respectable People from escaped mental patients is that when they scream to themselves in public, they have thin black wires dangling from their ears.
Such a lack of decorum is strange, coming from a class of people who insist no one can eat until all table settings are in place, complete with salad forks, even when the only thing on the menu is a family pack from KFC (which has never sold anything a spork can't handle, by the way).
Digital Slobs also love cell phones. Talking is, after all, the next best thing to doing nothing. But at least we're socially responsible enough to do absolutely all our chit-chatting in safe, controlled environments -- at breakneck speeds behind driver's side air bags. Don't be surprised if soon you hear one of us say, "Sorry I couldn't call you back sooner, but my car was in the shop."
Using cells on the road also lets us put governors on otherwise volatile parent-child conversations. Your average commute is long enough to call Mom and ask her how she's doing, but not long enough for her to ask you about when you're going to settle down and give her some grandkids.
Even if your parental units can fillet your emotional scar tissue faster than an Iron Chef, there's still a limit to how much you can commit to the experience when you're trying to parallel park at the same time.
Verbal self-defense may be easy behind the wheel, but when tactless Respectable People take the offensive and power dial out on the road, look out. If there's a time and place for everything, they think the time is always now and the place is wherever they happen to be.
It gives me chills to think that from our nation's highways, cellular bombshells like this are already bouncing off satellites: "Your father and I have been talking, and we think now is the time for you to know that you were adopted -- oops, hold on -- I'll tell you who your real parents are once we get through this tunnel, OK?"
So get a bit more sensitive about your Digital Age communications, Respectable People, or one day you could be on your death bed alone, except for some text messages from your kids that all say "R.I.P."
Curt Brandao is the Star-Bulletin's production editor. Reach him at: cbrandao@starbulletin.com