Rant #957: Selling My Soul For a Cell Phone

I am not a fan of cell phones.

More to the point, I am not a fan of the things that happen to people when they get their cell phones.

I have found that people all of a sudden become rude, so tied into their cell phones that it is as if no one else exists.

I hate it when I am having a conversation with someone, they get called, and they have to excuse themselves to take the call.

I also hate it when people are with you, and let's say, you are sitting down to eat, and the cell phone is put right in front of them, as if it were a plate and they were going to eat off of it.

Or they text right in the middle of a conversation with you.

I have a cell phone, only because my wife feels safer with me having it. It is a basic cell phone, a Tracfone, and I don't go on the Internet with it, I don't text with it, I just use it as a phone.

And I rarely use it. I have over 1,000 units left on this thing, because my main use of this device is to charge it up every week or so.

Few know my number, and that is the way I like it.

What this is all getting down to is that this weekend, for Mother's Day and for our upcoming wedding anniversary on June 6 (our 20th), I went out and bought my wife an iPhone.

She has had a cell phone for years, but it didn't have the capability that this one had.

It was old and "antiquated" because it really couldn't perform the functions beyond a phone that cell phones can handle now.

She texted with it, but she couldn't do much else when she used it beyond its functions as a phone.

Since she had been seemingly forever complaining about it, I made up my mind that she was going to get her iPhone, and I kept my promise.

Frankly, I am happy that she is happy with it. She was playing around with it all weekend, and yes, she does consider it to be an adult "toy," something to fiddle around with when the situation presents itself.

Me, I don't need such a phone, although the salesman did ask me if I was also interested.

I replied, "Absolutely not."

My wife is conscientious, but the most conscientious person gets wrapped up with these phones at the most inopportune times ...

... like texting while driving.

I can't tell you how many near accidents I have gotten in because people are not paying attention to the road but are paying more attention to their phones.

And we have all heard about the horrific accidents that do happen when somebody is texting and not paying attention.

I've been lucky to not have been in one of those.

I am confident she won't text while driving, but this fascination as a culture on these phones really is perplexing.

Do you really need your life history in your pocket?

And why are people so fascinated with having this information at the ready like they are?

Personally, I don't get it.

I have used my phone one or two times for an emergency, like when my old car broke down.

But generally, I never use the thing.

Would I ever get an iPhone?

I could tell you never, but never is a long time.

All I can say is that I doubt it. I really do.

I don't need all that information at my fingertips, and I certainly don't want to turn into the type of people that I described earlier.

And yes, my daughter has a cell phone such as this, and my son wants one.

I guess it is like when we were younger, everyone had to have a transistor radio to loll away dead time by listening to music.

But I simply don't need such a device.

To me, a phone is a phone is a phone, and it is nothing else.

But society seemingly has overruled me. I can't win here.

I am not sold on cell phones, but just about everyone else is.

I guess I am in a minority on this one, but so be it.