"Beep...beep...beep." What's that noise? Oh, it's my cell phone that has been on "low battery" for the last two days and I keep forgetting to charge it. My cell phone is basically my portable answering machine. I keep it in my bag, which I keep in the car (one less thing to carry in addition to my big, fat son while dragging the other two kids into the house). I have it in case I get into an accident, but really, I am not the most wired person in the world. It's kind of ironic really since I was one of the first people I know to get a cell phone when my father, scrambling to find something to give me for Christmas, purchased a Nokia for me in 1998. Now, with cell phones basically having become an appendage for some I look back on various stages of my life and wonder how we ever lived without them.
Apparently the parents of teenagers today can not carry on a conversation with their progeny without having to pry phones or Sidekicks out of their spoiled little mitts. I can not even imagine how my life would have been if I had the ability to constantly communicate with my friends at my finger tips. I thought my world was rocked when we got call waiting. I spent the majority of my sophomore year screaming, "I GOT IT!" into the phone after my mother and I simultaneously answered when my boyfriend would call. A problem that, again, does not exist today due to the wonders of caller ID, but that's a story for another post. With this unlimited access to my friends I suppose my grades would have suffered and I would have had my phone taken away - which happened with my Service Merchandise princess phone (pictured above) after I got a C in Algebra. I think a cell phone would have set me on course for a GED.
Let's not forget what fun it was as an adolescent in the late 80's having to call your parents to come pick you up. I became an expert at squeezing "I'm-at-the-mall-come-pick-me-up." into that three second pause the collect call recording gives you to state your name so my parents wouldn't have to pay the charges. I suppose the flip side of being able to easily contact your parents is that they expect to always be able to get in touch with you. Gone are the days you could lie to your folks telling them, "I'm sleeping at Jen's house" and give them the number which they would only call if someone died because they wouldn't want to bother her parents. The only one they're bothering to see if you're actually at Jen's or out at some party you aren't cool enough to be at anyway but went to because your friend has a crush on some guy from the wrestling team is you. And try hiding the background noise of sixteen year-olds doing keg stands.
College must also be a different experience. How many headaches could I have avoided if I didn't have to turn the phone on and off in my room each year? The days of roommates sharing a phone ("It's for you and tell him not to call so late, I have an 8:00!") and splitting the bill ("But I don't know anyone in Rochester!") are over. A few clicks of my keypad would have prevented me from slogging knee-high through snow in my ankle-high shoe-boots trying to meet up with friends at bars and fraternity parties ("Where R U?"). It also would have made my life easier trying to "accidentally" meet up with my future husband before he knew I liked him - you know, like, more than friends - by having friends text me if there was sighting, "He's here at TX" - instead of hearing it drunkenly by word of mouth and again risk ruining my Sam & Libby* footwear running in that direction. Yes, pathetic, but he married me anyway.
I can go on and on looking at my past through the lens of today's technology - how easy it makes dating in your twenties, telling your husband you're in labor in your thirties, but I do wonder if it's gone too far. Some people actually feel uncomfortable when they are "unwired' and I know I get pissed when I can't get my dearest on his phone or Blackberry. And the technology, please, this whole iPhone thing was ridiculous. I don't get it. My husband has to get me a new phone every so often because I'd keep them so long I'd be carrying the equivalent of a WWII field phone with a crank handle and not know it. And phones for kids? As I mentioned above, collect calls can be quite efficient or whatever happened to carrying a quarter? I take that back, actually, try finding a working pay phone and you're in for a long search. Perhaps I'll feel differently when my kids are old enough to know how to dial.
What I do think is this technology takes some of the spontenaity out of life. It was fun begin out somewhere I shouldn't have been in high school or running into my husband "accidentally" after hours of searching. And there is something to be said for a bit of mystery. When he and I were dating I'd not answer my home phone occasionally - let him wonder where I was. If your girlfriend doesn't answer at least one of her three phone numbers today you'd think she's dead in a ditch somewhere instead of out having fun without you and therefore, making her more desirable (I was a "Rules" girl, obviously). Constantly being available to everyone you know
is a lot of pressure and takes away from your time being present. Maybe we all need to unplug every once in a while. So if you call me at home and get no answer, sure, try my cell, but don't expect me to answer.
* Brand name credit to Mrs. Jean Roy
4 comments:
sweet post. i think about these things all the time. my social life was already insanely vibrant in college--how would it have been with the addition of facebook, i wonder?
and how well i remember the service merchandise phone! remember i had the lesbian version (the old timey black one with the hanging receiver)?
That princess phone of your's was quite sweet, although I could imagine it being a very painful if you wanted to cradle it between your ear and chin to multi-task.
I think it's something to do with being a mom. I used to try to explain to my mom all the time that there was no use in having a cell phone if one never answered it. Now, as a SAHM with one young son, you're lucky if I answer my home phone. Forget the cell. It's been banished to the diaper bad for child related emergencies and only gets charged before we go out for the night and leave the little man with a babysitter, in which case I then use all my minutes in that one night alone-remember, it's my first.
I read your blog its good. You're a good writer but when was I ever 'scrambling' for an xmas present? Oj yeah, every year but I dont remember your phone being taken away. Where was I??? Love you dad
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