This may sound like the rantings of a crotchety old man, but if you are like me, you wonder where did the term “crotchety” came from? Does it have something to do with the crotch? Perhaps if your shorts are too tight around the crotch, you get irritable and hence, crotchety.
The fact of the matter is that cell phones, as we have come to know them, are a sign of the beast. They are leading us down a path of self destruction and we are happy to follow.
Before cell phones existed, you had two options when placing a call. You either called from home where you had solid bakelite phone hooked up to a party line. This meant that you shared the phone line with several other people. If one of them was making a call and you picked up your phone to place your own call, you would hear the other conversation. You could even jump in if you desired but that was considered bad form. Most often you just hung up with an audible click so they knew you were waiting for the line.
The other option was to walk down to the corner of your street where a public pay phone was located. The phone was inside a phone booth which is where Superman used to change clothes. Just for the record, regular people cannot change their clothes inside a phone booth. Live and learn. You put a dime into the pay phone and got a dial tone allowing you to dial a 7 digit number. Area codes were not yet invented.
Life was good back then but now you can’t even find a public pay phone. They aren’t needed any more because everybody has a cell phone.
The first cell phone I ever saw was back in the late 1970’s. It was the size of a breadbox – oops – archaic reference alert. I meant to say is was the size of an X-Box. It featured a telephone handset connected to the rest of the phone by a coiled cord. It was cool because you could make a call from anywhere for only 50 cents a minute!
Next came the cell phones that were size and weight of a brick. You talked right into the brick until your arm got tired of holding it and you hung up.
After the brick phone came the flip phone, and that begat the next generation of phones…the SMART phone, and this is where the trouble begins.
Your phone has ceased to be merely a communications device and now runs your life. Your smart phone is a camera, GPS system, voice recorder, entry to the internet, personal assistant, and messaging center. It even makes phone calls. The problem is that since the telephony industry made these devices easy and indispensable, we depend on them too much.
We use them in the car and get into accidents. We use them when we are out for a stroll and walk into a fountain. I even know of people who used them in church and I don’t think God has an app.
Do yourself a favor today.Put your phone down and go for a walk. Then, leave it at home and go to dinner. And don’t touch it when you are driving. See if you can do this for a day. Then try it for a weekend, then a week, then a month and before you know it you will have performed a cell phone exorcism.
I have a lot more to say on this topic so visit here again. But right now I have to make a phone call. Does anybody have a dime?
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