The FIRST lesson: Cell Phones (part 1)

The first step towards proper behaviour is achieving (and then maintaining) some level of awareness of one's self. Simply put: pay attention to what you are doing! If you are driving your car or riding your bike, then focus on the road. If you are walking down the sidewalk, pay some attention to where you're putting your feet (this is a simple and easy way to avoid stepping in puddles, potholes and dog-poop); if you are in the kitchen preparing dinner, keep your eyes on the knife so you cut the carrots and not your fingers; if you are interacting with another person face-to-face, pay attention to the other person!

All of this is simple, common-sense advice. It bears repeating, however, because people are allowing "modern technology" to turn them into thoughtless savages. The biggest culprit is, of course, the cell phone. Nothing else comes close.

I am by no means a luddite. I freely admit that I have a cell phone, and that I use it frequently; my nomadic lifestyle demands no less. My cell phone use, however, is significantly more circumspect than that of most people. I do not have an annoying ring tone. I do not hold loud conversations in public places. I do not talk on my phone whilst I should be attending to other matters, i.e. the situation taking place directly in front of me that requires my full attention.

While cell phones have become a useful tool for modern life, and they are indeed great to have in emergency situations, they are far from being necessities in daily life. If you are stranded with an empty gas tank or a blown tire, by all means, use your phone. If you are stuck in the city after the subway stops running and you need to call home for a ride; if your plane is an hour early or an hour late; if traffic on the bridge has come to a grinding halt and you're going to be late for work, then please, flip open your cell and call whomever you must.

If, however, you are standing in line at the grocery store and start to get bored; if you are on the bus/train/trolley/subway and you’re not sure what to do with yourself; if you are in a movie theatre and you suddenly get the urge to share something with your best friend; do not pick up your phone!!

In the grocery store, your time in line is best spent going over the contents of your cart/basket and making sure that you have everything you wish to purchase. Waiting until your cashier has started your transaction – or even worse, waiting until the cashier is more than halfway done – to remember the milk, or orange juice or the cookies for little Susie (because, of course, you were too busy on your important cell phone call) is not only a good way to earn the enmity of your cashier and your fellow shoppers, it’s a great way to get your eggs and tomatoes inadvertently crushed.

If, while traveling to work on the subway, going to a doctor’s appointment on the bus, or just making a day-trip on the train to see dear old Aunt Millie, you suddenly get struck by a massive wave of ennui, do something constructive with your time instead of picking up your cell phone and engaging in petty, malicious gossip [Please don’t even TRY to say that most of these calls are anything else. You’ve been on the subway/bus/train and you’ve heard the rubbish that people talk about!]. Read a book or a newspaper. Fill out a crossword or (shudder) a su doku puzzle. Gaze out the window and try to remember what the hillsides and valleys looked like before all of the hideous pastel townhouses and glittering neon strip malls covered the landscape like maggots on a sun-baked corpse. Strike up a conversation with the person sitting next to you or across from you. Or just close your eyes and concentrate on the hypnotic sensation of the vehicle as it sways back and forth on the way to your destination. I would even suggest (though it PAINS me to do so) unraveling your little white headphones, sticking the buds in your ears and turning on your iPod (by the way, don’t think that iPods aren’t on my list; they are. They just happen to be a lesser evil than cell phones).

Grabbing your cell phone and calling someone just to “kill time” is simply not an acceptable solution. If your pending conversation is that important (and I’m almost 100% sure it’s NOT) I suggest you change your plans for the day and go sit with the person you need to talk to and have your chat face-to-face.

I have not heard of it happening yet, but I am sure that, sooner rather than later, some unlucky, unwitting soul will, while yakking mindlessly on the phone, be set upon by fellow riders who have been enraged beyond the point of sanity and be torn to pieces (I envision something akin to Orpheus and the maenads). I’m actually looking forward to that day, if only so that others will learn a valuable object lesson.

So then, what’s left? Ah yes, movie theatres. Do I even need to say anything here? After paying over $10.00 for a ticket, $2-$3 dollars for a drink and $5-$7 dollars for popcorn; after fighting to get a pair of seats together that aren’t directly in front of the screen in the very first row; after sitting through more commercials than an average hour of primetime television, no one deserves to have another’s cell phone conversation thrust upon them.

In this case I will be uncharacteristically blunt (and vulgar) and suggest that anyone who uses a cell phone in a movie theatre – regardless of the reason – deserves an ass-whipping of the utmost severity. That is the only reasonable response.

I’ll break here to let my readers absorb what I’ve said thus far. I’ll be back in a day or so with “Cell Phones (part 2)."