I am grieving. I learned Sunday night that some very good friends of mine died recently. They died either on an island, in a plane crash or in some other way that was not completely explained to me. I’ve been very sad ever since because I will miss them. I have cried for them (went to work with swollen eyelids today). I have questioned their purpose in life. I have speculated as to what really happened to them even though I am clearly not to know or understand. I am happy for them because I believe that they are now at peace. And they are with the ones they love. But my friends Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Sayid, Hurley, Charlie, heck… even Rose and Bernard… I will miss all of them. We’ve been through a lot together.
I get attached to TV shows and characters and I am sad when we must part ways. If it is my decision to leave, I can handle it. Like my friends on Wisteria Lane. I decided after spending a year with them that I had too many other friends and I had to cut some people out of my life. So, Susan, Gabby, Linette and Edie had to go. I was okay with that. I most likely won’t even catch up with them when it’s time for them to say goodbye to the rest of their friends. We’ve drifted apart – and I’m okay with that. It happens.
It happened with me and Jack Bauer. Gosh, I loved him. He was so heroic! For seven years I watched him save the world and cheat death. But I also saw him lose a lot. He lost his wife, his girlfriend, another girlfriend and several friends at the CTU. His job was too dangerous. So many things kept happening that it finally just got to be too much for me. Do I wish him well? Of course I do. He’s Jack Bauer! But I had to end our friendship. He stuck around for another year, but I just couldn’t do it anymore.
I can remember back to the first time I realized that TV friends I had come to know and care about would be leaving my life. I knew these wacky roommates – Jack, Janet and Teri. Their meddlesome landlord was always causing problems for them and they were always getting their wires crossed in some zany misunderstanding – usually revolving around someone’s mistaken assumption that two people were having sex. Anyway, one day Jack fell in love and moved in with a girl named Vicky. Janet got married and moved away. Teri became a nurse in Hawaii. The threesome would be no more. Sure, they might keep in touch, but the dynamic they shared would never exist among them again. I had an opportunity to remain friends with Jack and Vicky, but it just wasn’t the same. They only stuck around for a year.
Then there was the Keaton family. Oh, how I cried when their oldest son, Alex, who I used to pretend to make out with, would be moving to New York for a job on Wall Street. Had I meant nothing to him all of those years I followed his life? He just left! I was crushed! Once he moved away, I began hanging out with this group of misfits who spent all of their time in a Boston bar. The hung out for what seemed like weeks at a time at this bar. I’m not sure any of them actually worked. Well, one guy was a mailman. He always wore his uniform.
At some point, I became friends with a group of kids from Bayside High. I am embarrassed to admit how much time I spent with those guys. I even hung out with them a little when they went to college. I was older than they were so really I should not have spent the kind of time with that that I did. We eventually went our separate ways. I kept up with one girl who moved to Beverly Hills and hung out with another group of students I knew – although, I think she got a boob job before she moved. I followed one guy when he became a detective in the NYPD. One girl ended up as a stripper in Vegas – she was pretty gross. I don’t think she had a boob job. I had to opportunity to see her dancing and shaking and I’m pretty sure hers were real.
Eventually I lost touch with those kids. I moved on to this group of friends in New York. They were MUCH cooler than the Bayside High students. These guys hung out in a coffee shop most of the time and had really cool hair. They also slept with each other a lot and in different pairings. I was getting kind of tired of them so when we parted ways I wasn’t too upset when they left.
Now, I was very upset to lose my other New York friends although they were really horrible, horrible people. Our friendship ended when they were sentenced to jail for one year for breaking a Good Samaritan law. For many years, Jerry, Elaine, Kramer and George were just awful to their respective boyfriends and girlfriends and others with whom they came into contact. But they were sarcastic and funny and I knew I would miss them.
Another group of people I hated to see go were the Soprano family in New Jersey. I’m not sure why I liked that family. They were believed to be in the mob. The more time I spent with them, I had a bad feeling that someone would die that I didn’t want to see die. I don’t think that happened. Actually, I have no idea what happened to them. One minute they were there and the next they weren’t. It was like, everything just faded to black and they would never be heard from again. Weird.
But the six years that I knew the Kwons, Mr. Locke, Desmond and the gang were very good years. They always kept me guessing. They made me angry. They made me think (usually I hate that). They made me think about spirituality and about good and evil – real heavy stuff. Things I don’t normally think about on Tuesday evenings. Things that, in their absence, I am unlikely to ponder going forward.
And these people didn’t simply leave me. They died. I had invested so much into them. I had gotten to know them. To care about them. And they are gone now. I know, I know. I’ll make new friends. Probably sometime in the fall, I’ll be introduced to a whole new crop of friends. But it won’t be the same. It won’t be those people in that group. I don’t even know yet if I’ll want to make room in my life for any new friends. It gets pretty time consuming and I have two kids and husband who need my attention.
Plus, I’ve already got plenty of other friends. There’s the group I hang out with from Dunder Mifflin. They are pretty funny, but I work in HR and the things they do make me very uncomfortable. It’s just not appropriate for the workplace. Then there’s Ted, Barney and their friends who frequently get together for drinks over at McLaren’s. I like them, but I’m getting pretty annoyed with them. Ted is making me guess who the mother of his kids will be. I want answers now – stop teasing me! I guess my best friend right now would have to be Liz Lemon. She reminds me of a much cooler version of myself. And what a life – she works at 30 Rockefeller Center in New York for a guy who looks like Alec Baldwin.
So I guess I do have people I can still spend time with. I will just have to move on and be thankful for the time we spent together. I’ll have to enjoy my summer outside with all of my real, actual friends. If you are one of them, I will have to lean on you in this time of grief.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Reach Out And Touch Someone
I mentioned in my last post that there was a reason I had chosen a ridiculous phone number when I bought my first legitimate (non-bag) cell phone. The number I chose at that time was XXX-FART or XXX-BUTT or something equally mature. One of my all-time favorite stories is the reason for my choosing this phone number. Most of my all-time favorite stories are stories about hilarious things that have happened to other people. But this is one that happened to me that I think is so great on so many levels. It's embarrassing. It's relatable (I hope - or else I'm just a big ol' loser). It's funny. It's one that needs to be shared. So now, here is that story.
Growing up, my best friends were two girls - sisters - who lived at the end of my street. (I will not use their names in order to protect their identities and reputations.) We did all kinds of foolish things together. We would re-create and act out episodes of Three's Company - three girls; we had to rotate who would be Jack Tripper. We would pretend we were waitresses (way to set lofty goals for yourselves, gals) who would receive $1000 tips from handsome men (Good God). We were huge Dukes of Hazzard fans so naturally we would pretend that we were John Schneider's nephews. (You read that correctly - we were idiots). We had a singing group (Heaven help anyone who had to be exposed to this) named the "Cool Fools" (well, we got the "fools" part right anyway...). And... we made prank phone calls.
A lot.
We would do the hilarious Call-The-Butterworth's-House-And-Ask-If-Their-Syrup-Was-Truly-The-Richest-And-Butteriest routine. We would do the always clever May-I-Speak-To-John?-You-Don't-Have-A-John?-Well-Where-Do-You-Go-To-The-Bathroom? gag. We would do the old When-Someone-Answers-The-Phone-At-Their-Residence-Start-Trying-To-Order-A-Pizza bit. Hilarity!
But the most fun we had was calling people's homes whose phone numbers spelled something dirty. Anyone whose last four digits spelled FART (3278) or BUTT (2888) or ANUS (2687) or SH*T (7448) or DAMN (3266) or ...well... go see what 3825 spells... got multiple calls from us. The unsuspecting resident would answer the phone and one of us would say:
Do you realize your number is 822-BUTT?
We would wait for them to say something in return - although it was clearly never as clever as what we were saying.
Then we would hang up.
And die laughing.
I must point out that this was before the Wii and XBox and things like that. It was before cell phones (certainly before caller ID) and iPods. It was pretty much before any type of the mind-numbing entertainment that we have today existed. As a result, we had to come up with our own ways to keep ourselves entertained. And, unfortunately for the people with those phone numbers, a lot of times this meant bothering others. But no matter. That's what kids did before caller ID made it virtually impossible to do it anonymously.
We did this so often that for years, when I would dial a number, I would try to see what it spelled as a means for me to remember it. If someone had a zero or a one in their number it was a total bummer because those numbers just mess the whole thing up. Unless you have a one at the beginning or end of it. Then, a person's number could be 822-1ASS or 822-FAT1. But I digress...
I can't say for sure how long my friends and I made these prank calls. But I'm going to guess it was for years and years and years. It simply did not get old. The person on the other end of the phone always had a different reaction so it was a new game each time we played.
Some people would laugh.
Some people would say they already knew it.
Some would hang up immediately.
Some would threaten to put a trace on the phone so we could be identified. (yeah, right - as if that kind of technology existed in the 80s.)
Some would tell us what naughty little children we were.
Some even told us they'd hunt us down and kill us down if we ever bothered them again.
At some point - though probably not until much later than everyone else our age - we matured and started finding other forms of entertainment. Once we could drive, we were no longer forced to sit at some one's house and try to annoy people. We could go somewhere else to do that!
So, we grew up and life went on.
Years later, I was in college at Auburn. My prank calling buddy had actually introduced me to my roommate. She was someone from our hometown who went to another school. I knew her only through my friend and had only met her a couple of times before we moved in together.
She and I became fast friends. She is still one of my best friends today. She was and probably still is the kind of person who seemed at first very sweet and nice, but once you got to know her had a pretty bawdy sense of humor. We got along famously. Then came the Christmas holidays when everyone would be going home for a couple of weeks. She and I exchanged numbers so we could try and get together over the break.
A couple of days into the break, I called my friend and roommate. As I dialed, I looked closely at the digits and to my delight, they were very familiar.
You guessed it - her home number was 823-FART!
It was like the mother ship had landed for me. What a coincidence that all the time I spent doing this in the past, my future best friend was out there all along being the proud owner of this phone number!! And what was so funny about it all was that for as much as I loved potty humor, she was completely annoyed by it. She would likely see no joy in this scenario and just roll her eyes at me when I told her the great news.
Her mother answered after a couple of rings and she and I exchanged pleasantries. She then called Wendy to come to the phone. When Wendy picked up, the first thing I said was,
Do you realize your number is 823-FART?
She let out kind of an exasperated giggle which I expected. Then she said something that I didn't. She said,
"Actually yes. Someone called and told my dad that several years ago."
Now the stars were aligning for me. It was the perfect storm of my past self uniting with my future/current self. This little habit of prank calling people had finally come full circle for me. It was something out of a coming of age movie (although one that would never be made due to the subject matter) where in an instant my entire life to that point (18 years) flashed before my eyes.
WENDY!!!, I said.
THAT WAS ME!!!!
Of course, she was nowhere near as impressed as I was over the whole thing. She was probably rethinking the whole roommate thing at that point. I'm sure she gave me some kind of a courtesy laugh and then we pretty much just moved on.
Over the years I have delighted in telling that story. I mean truly - what a coincidence. It's held the same weight for me that one of Oprah's A-ha! moments would have for a normal person. It just never gets old. Now if only I could befriend someone who lives at 822-3825 - I could die happy and fulfilled.
Growing up, my best friends were two girls - sisters - who lived at the end of my street. (I will not use their names in order to protect their identities and reputations.) We did all kinds of foolish things together. We would re-create and act out episodes of Three's Company - three girls; we had to rotate who would be Jack Tripper. We would pretend we were waitresses (way to set lofty goals for yourselves, gals) who would receive $1000 tips from handsome men (Good God). We were huge Dukes of Hazzard fans so naturally we would pretend that we were John Schneider's nephews. (You read that correctly - we were idiots). We had a singing group (Heaven help anyone who had to be exposed to this) named the "Cool Fools" (well, we got the "fools" part right anyway...). And... we made prank phone calls.
A lot.
We would do the hilarious Call-The-Butterworth's-House-And-Ask-If-Their-Syrup-Was-Truly-The-Richest-And-Butteriest routine. We would do the always clever May-I-Speak-To-John?-You-Don't-Have-A-John?-Well-Where-Do-You-Go-To-The-Bathroom? gag. We would do the old When-Someone-Answers-The-Phone-At-Their-Residence-Start-Trying-To-Order-A-Pizza bit. Hilarity!
But the most fun we had was calling people's homes whose phone numbers spelled something dirty. Anyone whose last four digits spelled FART (3278) or BUTT (2888) or ANUS (2687) or SH*T (7448) or DAMN (3266) or ...well... go see what 3825 spells... got multiple calls from us. The unsuspecting resident would answer the phone and one of us would say:
Do you realize your number is 822-BUTT?
We would wait for them to say something in return - although it was clearly never as clever as what we were saying.
Then we would hang up.
And die laughing.
I must point out that this was before the Wii and XBox and things like that. It was before cell phones (certainly before caller ID) and iPods. It was pretty much before any type of the mind-numbing entertainment that we have today existed. As a result, we had to come up with our own ways to keep ourselves entertained. And, unfortunately for the people with those phone numbers, a lot of times this meant bothering others. But no matter. That's what kids did before caller ID made it virtually impossible to do it anonymously.
We did this so often that for years, when I would dial a number, I would try to see what it spelled as a means for me to remember it. If someone had a zero or a one in their number it was a total bummer because those numbers just mess the whole thing up. Unless you have a one at the beginning or end of it. Then, a person's number could be 822-1ASS or 822-FAT1. But I digress...
I can't say for sure how long my friends and I made these prank calls. But I'm going to guess it was for years and years and years. It simply did not get old. The person on the other end of the phone always had a different reaction so it was a new game each time we played.
Some people would laugh.
Some people would say they already knew it.
Some would hang up immediately.
Some would threaten to put a trace on the phone so we could be identified. (yeah, right - as if that kind of technology existed in the 80s.)
Some would tell us what naughty little children we were.
Some even told us they'd hunt us down and kill us down if we ever bothered them again.
At some point - though probably not until much later than everyone else our age - we matured and started finding other forms of entertainment. Once we could drive, we were no longer forced to sit at some one's house and try to annoy people. We could go somewhere else to do that!
So, we grew up and life went on.
Years later, I was in college at Auburn. My prank calling buddy had actually introduced me to my roommate. She was someone from our hometown who went to another school. I knew her only through my friend and had only met her a couple of times before we moved in together.
She and I became fast friends. She is still one of my best friends today. She was and probably still is the kind of person who seemed at first very sweet and nice, but once you got to know her had a pretty bawdy sense of humor. We got along famously. Then came the Christmas holidays when everyone would be going home for a couple of weeks. She and I exchanged numbers so we could try and get together over the break.
A couple of days into the break, I called my friend and roommate. As I dialed, I looked closely at the digits and to my delight, they were very familiar.
You guessed it - her home number was 823-FART!
It was like the mother ship had landed for me. What a coincidence that all the time I spent doing this in the past, my future best friend was out there all along being the proud owner of this phone number!! And what was so funny about it all was that for as much as I loved potty humor, she was completely annoyed by it. She would likely see no joy in this scenario and just roll her eyes at me when I told her the great news.
Her mother answered after a couple of rings and she and I exchanged pleasantries. She then called Wendy to come to the phone. When Wendy picked up, the first thing I said was,
Do you realize your number is 823-FART?
She let out kind of an exasperated giggle which I expected. Then she said something that I didn't. She said,
"Actually yes. Someone called and told my dad that several years ago."
Now the stars were aligning for me. It was the perfect storm of my past self uniting with my future/current self. This little habit of prank calling people had finally come full circle for me. It was something out of a coming of age movie (although one that would never be made due to the subject matter) where in an instant my entire life to that point (18 years) flashed before my eyes.
WENDY!!!, I said.
THAT WAS ME!!!!
Of course, she was nowhere near as impressed as I was over the whole thing. She was probably rethinking the whole roommate thing at that point. I'm sure she gave me some kind of a courtesy laugh and then we pretty much just moved on.
Over the years I have delighted in telling that story. I mean truly - what a coincidence. It's held the same weight for me that one of Oprah's A-ha! moments would have for a normal person. It just never gets old. Now if only I could befriend someone who lives at 822-3825 - I could die happy and fulfilled.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
I Caved
I have done something I'm not proud of. It was something I said I would never do and yet... here we are. It is something I got mad at my husband for doing a few years ago. It is something I formed at pact with one of my coworkers about that we would be the last hold-outs.
I got a blackberry.
Now, before you go all "but you hate cellphones already and now this?!" on me, let me explain.
I work three days a week. My job is one that is very difficult to do in only three days. I need to stay connected with work in case a serious situation - or just one that needs my attention - arises. I've been carting my laptop around everywhere - convenient enough I always said. But geez, to drag it out of my car and out of it's bag and THEN to have to connect with the network and enter a bazillion passwords, etc. - I found myself not using it very often. So, I would check work emails from my home computer using the nefarious "Webmail". The problem was, Webmail didn't like my computer and for whatever reason, I could only open emails. I could not respond. So then I would have to open Webmail to check in and then respond via my personal email address.
That was no good because if person responded to that, I could only read it at home. I needed up having half of a conversation at work and half at home. Not good if you are trying to remember what you said you'd do about something.
Several months ago, I saw an ad for the Droid. As soon as I saw it, I knew Mike would come up with some reason why his blackberry was no longer any good thus necessitating the purchase of a Droid. At that point, I knew that when we would have that conversation (which we did about 14 minutes after I saw that first ad) I would ask for his blackberry cast-off.
Those of you who know me well know that I have long resented cellphones. I can remember in high school getting one of those 80 lb, enormous bag phones that had that tightly curled cord that you had to use all of the strength you could muster to stretch to your ear as you drove. I had that phone for ages and only in case of an emergency. I went to Auburn (War Damn Eagle) which was two hours away from home so I needed it in case disaster struck on my way to and from school. I kept that phone until many years later when I was in my first job post-grad school (Go Vols!).
I was living in Murfreesboro (Go Blue Raiders!) at the time and I traded my Acura hatchback for the much safer and more sensible Volvo S40. I was inside signing all of the paperwork - as you can imagine I got a superb deal on this vehicle. I was single and in there by myself handling the negotiations. Actually, negotiations probably isn't the right word. They told me what the price was and I paid that price. A practice I've learned since being with Mike is not at all how you should ever purchase a car, but I digress... - and one of the salesmen who was transferring my belongings from the old car to the new one came in giggling. This is not a direct quote because it has been so long since all of this happened, but he said something to the extent of,
"Hey, boss! Bet you haven't seen one of these since the 80's!!" at which point he triumphantly lifts up my bag phone for all to see.
People, including the aforementioned "boss" began snickering at me and I felt like I had just walked out of Amish country - no make-up, hair secured in a matronly bun. Surely no cultured woman would really still own a dinosaur like this. But then again, a cultured woman would have been smart enough to bring a man with her when she was buying a new car. (While I was there, I kept hearing a tearing sound which, years later, I finally discovered was the new one I was being ripped while I was at Darrell Waltrip Volvo.)
All of this to say, I was shamed into buying a real, actual cellphone. Of course at the time, I bought the cheapest one I could find. Again, I'm not buying into society's constant need to be connected to anything and everything. I remember at the time, a friend (who shall remain nameless for the purpose of this story to protect her identity) and I went together to buy them. We both asked for an easy to remember phone number (I think I chose XXX-FART for mine**.) and had to have explicit instructions to understand how this new piece of technology worked. Of course, it was the late 90's so this really wasn't new technology. It was simply new to those of us who had not yet embraced the future of communications.
Then, of course, time went on and I met Mike. He was Mr. Cellphone - couldn't do his job without one. He let me have his flip phone and he upgraded on one for himself, and so began our relationship of me getting his used phones and him getting the latest and greatest model.
The came the blackberry.
The reason I hate cellphones is because while I was living in Murfreesboro and working at MTSU, I would see students leave their classes and immediately call their friends, parents, whomever as though there was something critically important that just could not wait until later in the day after classes. My thought was, "how freakin' important do these people think they are?"
I just must be able to be reached at all times - I'm that busy and I'm that important.
I still feel this way, by the way. The fact that I am now a sell-out does not change this sentiment. But the blackberry elevated that to a whole new level. You could no longer have a conversation with someone because they were scrolling through their email at the dinner table. You no longer had anyone's attention in meetings, because they were click-click-clicking on their keypads responding to emails. It is ANNOYING! And everyone does it. I just don't want to be that distracted all the time that I miss out on things I need to be paying attention to.
AND - I don't want to start speaking in "texts" all the time. Texting is not really a word, by the way. "Text" is not a verb. It is a noun. OMG, it's a noun!! LOL!!! What self-respecting adult types this way? I can tell you a lot of them do. Text abbreviations look like some silly language I would have used with my buddies in middle school. I mean really, WTF?!!
My reasons for getting the blackberry were honestly very pure. I wanted to have the convenience of checking work emails on my days off. That's it. I don't need to be able to check the Internet from my phone. I don't need to download different songs so that my ringtone is cooler (or really, with my musical taste, lamer) than yours. I don't need all of those bells and whistles. All I need to do is check work emails and place/receive calls. Isn't that really the function of a phone? To call someone? Who decided we should be able to shoot videos with them?!
And don't get me started on the new word that I hate: "apps". This is a loathsome word to me. A grown person should not be talking about all of the cool "apps" they have on their phone. I remember when this word was used to refer to an appetizer when I was a hostess at a restaurant. I hated it then and I hate it now. If you have neat "apps", please keep it to yourself.
I'm sure that now that I have the blackberry, I'll wonder what I ever did before it. I'll probably never go back to a regular cellphone. I'm too good for it now I suppose. I bowed to the pressure to have one. I caved and I admit it. But I will not be zombie in meetings, at dinner, and in day to day conversations with people. I will give everyone my undivided attention whether I'm getting an email on my phone or not. I will...wait...
Wait. Hang on...
I'm getting an email...
Let me check it...
How does this stupid thing...
Oh, I press this...
scroll...
scroll...
scroll...
scroll...
How funny!...
LOL!!!...
Wait, what was I saying?
** For more information on how I arrived at this number, please see the next post.
I got a blackberry.
Now, before you go all "but you hate cellphones already and now this?!" on me, let me explain.
I work three days a week. My job is one that is very difficult to do in only three days. I need to stay connected with work in case a serious situation - or just one that needs my attention - arises. I've been carting my laptop around everywhere - convenient enough I always said. But geez, to drag it out of my car and out of it's bag and THEN to have to connect with the network and enter a bazillion passwords, etc. - I found myself not using it very often. So, I would check work emails from my home computer using the nefarious "Webmail". The problem was, Webmail didn't like my computer and for whatever reason, I could only open emails. I could not respond. So then I would have to open Webmail to check in and then respond via my personal email address.
That was no good because if person responded to that, I could only read it at home. I needed up having half of a conversation at work and half at home. Not good if you are trying to remember what you said you'd do about something.
Several months ago, I saw an ad for the Droid. As soon as I saw it, I knew Mike would come up with some reason why his blackberry was no longer any good thus necessitating the purchase of a Droid. At that point, I knew that when we would have that conversation (which we did about 14 minutes after I saw that first ad) I would ask for his blackberry cast-off.
Those of you who know me well know that I have long resented cellphones. I can remember in high school getting one of those 80 lb, enormous bag phones that had that tightly curled cord that you had to use all of the strength you could muster to stretch to your ear as you drove. I had that phone for ages and only in case of an emergency. I went to Auburn (War Damn Eagle) which was two hours away from home so I needed it in case disaster struck on my way to and from school. I kept that phone until many years later when I was in my first job post-grad school (Go Vols!).
I was living in Murfreesboro (Go Blue Raiders!) at the time and I traded my Acura hatchback for the much safer and more sensible Volvo S40. I was inside signing all of the paperwork - as you can imagine I got a superb deal on this vehicle. I was single and in there by myself handling the negotiations. Actually, negotiations probably isn't the right word. They told me what the price was and I paid that price. A practice I've learned since being with Mike is not at all how you should ever purchase a car, but I digress... - and one of the salesmen who was transferring my belongings from the old car to the new one came in giggling. This is not a direct quote because it has been so long since all of this happened, but he said something to the extent of,
"Hey, boss! Bet you haven't seen one of these since the 80's!!" at which point he triumphantly lifts up my bag phone for all to see.
People, including the aforementioned "boss" began snickering at me and I felt like I had just walked out of Amish country - no make-up, hair secured in a matronly bun. Surely no cultured woman would really still own a dinosaur like this. But then again, a cultured woman would have been smart enough to bring a man with her when she was buying a new car. (While I was there, I kept hearing a tearing sound which, years later, I finally discovered was the new one I was being ripped while I was at Darrell Waltrip Volvo.)
All of this to say, I was shamed into buying a real, actual cellphone. Of course at the time, I bought the cheapest one I could find. Again, I'm not buying into society's constant need to be connected to anything and everything. I remember at the time, a friend (who shall remain nameless for the purpose of this story to protect her identity) and I went together to buy them. We both asked for an easy to remember phone number (I think I chose XXX-FART for mine**.) and had to have explicit instructions to understand how this new piece of technology worked. Of course, it was the late 90's so this really wasn't new technology. It was simply new to those of us who had not yet embraced the future of communications.
Then, of course, time went on and I met Mike. He was Mr. Cellphone - couldn't do his job without one. He let me have his flip phone and he upgraded on one for himself, and so began our relationship of me getting his used phones and him getting the latest and greatest model.
The came the blackberry.
The reason I hate cellphones is because while I was living in Murfreesboro and working at MTSU, I would see students leave their classes and immediately call their friends, parents, whomever as though there was something critically important that just could not wait until later in the day after classes. My thought was, "how freakin' important do these people think they are?"
I just must be able to be reached at all times - I'm that busy and I'm that important.
I still feel this way, by the way. The fact that I am now a sell-out does not change this sentiment. But the blackberry elevated that to a whole new level. You could no longer have a conversation with someone because they were scrolling through their email at the dinner table. You no longer had anyone's attention in meetings, because they were click-click-clicking on their keypads responding to emails. It is ANNOYING! And everyone does it. I just don't want to be that distracted all the time that I miss out on things I need to be paying attention to.
AND - I don't want to start speaking in "texts" all the time. Texting is not really a word, by the way. "Text" is not a verb. It is a noun. OMG, it's a noun!! LOL!!! What self-respecting adult types this way? I can tell you a lot of them do. Text abbreviations look like some silly language I would have used with my buddies in middle school. I mean really, WTF?!!
My reasons for getting the blackberry were honestly very pure. I wanted to have the convenience of checking work emails on my days off. That's it. I don't need to be able to check the Internet from my phone. I don't need to download different songs so that my ringtone is cooler (or really, with my musical taste, lamer) than yours. I don't need all of those bells and whistles. All I need to do is check work emails and place/receive calls. Isn't that really the function of a phone? To call someone? Who decided we should be able to shoot videos with them?!
And don't get me started on the new word that I hate: "apps". This is a loathsome word to me. A grown person should not be talking about all of the cool "apps" they have on their phone. I remember when this word was used to refer to an appetizer when I was a hostess at a restaurant. I hated it then and I hate it now. If you have neat "apps", please keep it to yourself.
I'm sure that now that I have the blackberry, I'll wonder what I ever did before it. I'll probably never go back to a regular cellphone. I'm too good for it now I suppose. I bowed to the pressure to have one. I caved and I admit it. But I will not be zombie in meetings, at dinner, and in day to day conversations with people. I will give everyone my undivided attention whether I'm getting an email on my phone or not. I will...wait...
Wait. Hang on...
I'm getting an email...
Let me check it...
How does this stupid thing...
Oh, I press this...
scroll...
scroll...
scroll...
scroll...
How funny!...
LOL!!!...
Wait, what was I saying?
** For more information on how I arrived at this number, please see the next post.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)