Damn Cellphones!!!

The BBQ Pit
1

I hate Cellphones! Ever since they came out, it is impossible to leave the house without having someone call you! Argh!

They are everywhere, and they go off in the places they should not. You know what I’m talking about, the damn ringing going off in the middle of a movie or when you are taking a nap, or even when you are at an intimate moment.

And you know what **really **, **really ** sucks, the fact that if you DO turn it off, you coincidentialy always miss an important call.

In this sense, I HATE them, but unfortunatley, it is very difficult to go out without one these days.

Haven’t you had people ask you this:

“Hey man, what’s your cell number?”

Fuck off, call my house, or don’t bother calling.

“I called like 8 times and you did’nt pick up the phone!!”

Uh, yeah, I know, if I didn’t pick up the 3rd time, why do you continue calling, moron?

Damn, it’s getting to the point where people don’t even bother calling your home, they just the cellphone, and if you don’t pick up, you simply cannot be found. What the fuck?

Seriously, people managed to live without these freakin’ interupting, noisemaking, privacy neglecting machines for many years. Now, people can’t live without one.

Stop showing off you new phone, I don’t care, and No, I do not intend on buying the cellphones that show movies and play MP3’s, that’s what TV’s and CD Players are for!!!

:mad:

2

They make you gassy too.

:: burp ::

3

My Wife and I do just fine not being tied to them. We own them, but rarely turn them on unless WE need them.

Just turn the thing off. The world is not going to end if you mis an ‘important’ call. The simple way not to become dependant on them is to not depend on them.

People either call me at home or work. Simple as that. If I’m away on a road trip or something, it’s handy for both my Wife and I but that’s about it.

4

My amazing husband took me to the most spectacular spa in the universe this weekend. Perhaps the biggest thing attributing to its incredibly relaxing atmosphere were these signs (and their enforcement), which could be found throughout the property.

Aaaaahhhhhh, glorious!

5

On the one hand, I feel your pain. On the other hand, your pain is, to a degree, self-inflicted.

Will the world end if you are out of reach for a few hours? When do you sleep?
Will you lose your job if Walter from accounting can’t get in touch during dinner?

When I was in fifth grade, my teacher told the class a story that has (obviously) stuck with me. Seems when he was younger, he was interviewing an older gentleman for some reason or another. They were sitting in subject’s living room when the phone rang. The young “Mister C,” as we called him jumped up in a Pavlovian spasm to get the phone. His manners got the better of him, and he sat back down so the person whose phone it was could answer it.
ring.
ring.
ring.
ring.
ring.
ring.
“Aren’t you going to pick it up?”
ring.
ring.
“Nope.”
ring.
ring.
“Why not?”
ring. (this was before answering machines, so it kept ringing)
ring.
“Cuz I got that thing for my convenience, not anyone else’s.”

Seiously. That phone is your line to the world, not the world’s line to you (unless you choose it to be). Turn it off, let people leave messages, and don’t give your number to people you don’t want calling you.

6

On a related note, am I the only one who is freaked out by the cell phone headsets. I still can’t get forget the first time I saw a person talking on one. It was in a grocery store at night, and my thought process went like this.

“There’s a guy. He’s talking… to…no one-there’s no one around him that he could possible converse with. He’s a schizophrenic (yes I know its properly called MPD). Why is there a schizophrenic in the grocery store? What is he doing with a shopping cart? Is he in charge of the shopping at the asylum? Lunatics eat bacon?”

Yes I grew up in a rural area, and trends were notoriously late in arriving, but even upon moving to less insular, more urban environs, I still can’t get used to seeing people talk to air. At least when they speak into the phone you can see the characteristic contorted arm, and thus have a clue that they are corresponding with someone through electromagnetic phenomena that I can’t grasp. But without the phone pressed to their ear, I always have a 2 second WTF-Crazy or Not?-Flight or Fight reaction, and, even after this subsides, I walk around feeling like Winston Smith in a distorted world, trying to figure out what technological marvel is going to blindside me next. Seriously, the people who market such devices need to adopt this slogan:

“Wireless headsets; helping asylum escapees blend in with the general populace since 19XX.”

7

Ditto. My cellphone is off 95% of the time. I check its voicemail maybe once a day.

The only time it’s on is when my fiancee and I, or the two of us and friends of ours, know we’ll be needing to coordinate our whereabouts with hectic schedules. The times when you say “I have no idea when my appointment will be over. Keep your cellphone on, if I get out early enough I can meet you at X.”

Recently: one person had our rock concert tickets, another got in line, the other two were arriving separately by car and bicycle respectively, another got sick but was going to try to come… we were sorting out all the logistics on the fly. Once we were all settled, the phones were off again.

8

Maybe I’ll get one someday so I can be miserable, too.

9

Why yes, yes we do.

Since you ask, I’m feeling much better now. :smiley:

10

Tell you what… you just get rid of your cell phone, and I’ll get off your damn lawn.

11

I resemble that remark.So do I!

12

My mother in law bought me and my wife a cell phone package thing back in November, or I would never, ever own a cell phone. I’ve used it six times (I’ve been keeping track). I do not give the number out (I don’t even know it); I will not ever check the voice mail; I will not ever text. I have had friends give me a hard time because I will not use a cellphone (“How will we get in touch with you if our plans change?” Don’t plan something with me if you think it will change thirty minutes before we’re supposed to meet somewhere - I don’t do spontaneous, and I won’t be upset if you don’t include me because of that.). I do not get upset with other people owning cellphones, of course, unless they’re being rude about it, and that pretty much means texting. Some of my friends and I do a bar trivia thing, and we almost always win…one of the rules is no cell phones, and one guy is so damned addicted to texting he’s gotten us disqualified because he can’t go two hours without whipping his phone out. When there’s a 100 dollar bar tab on the line, you don’t fuck it up beceause you had to text “LOL” to your girlfriend. Man, that pisses me off.

But I really don’t understand hating cell phones but choosing to carry one. That I don’t get at all. It’s really not hard at all to go through life without one (barring the inevitable 'I need my cell phone or MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WILL DIE" stuff I see when people complain about cell phones).

13

Mr. S and I each have a cell phone. Tracfone, pay-as-you-go. We rarely give the number out, and when we do we explain that its use is only for today’s purpose or only when we tell them we’re expecting a call on it; we don’t keep our phones on and handy 24/7.

Hell, our HOME phone hardly ever rings. I’m an e-mail girl.

14

I want the “Brick” back. The Cadillac of phones. You could drop it and it would still work. But with all the technology of today. Navigation, a thousand ring tones, a battery that would last a month and maybe a satellite connection just in case I ever get down to Fiji or the Congo. That sucker could hold a city phone book in the memory and still be able to play a million songs of your choice.

15

nitpick:
Schizophrenia and MPD (now Dissociative Disorder) are 2 different things entirely. I know it’s picky and a buzzkill to bring that up in your otherwise funny post, but that’s one of the common misconceptions that gets my goat every single time I read or hear it.

Carry on.

16

This is the closest I’ve come asking somebody if I could borrow a siggy.

Funny shit.

17

“Real” phones are just the same. I got rid of mine as soon as my cell/phone/internet/cable in one company brought in a package that allowed those amenities without a landline.

Before that my mom and sister would call and if the machine picked up they’d say (all confused and stuff) "where ARE you??? " Then, when I called them back they’d say “where were you, we called 5 times”.

I was asleep.

“But we needed you”.

I love you guys, but I need my sleep.

(this conversation has been going on since WAY before cell phones came on the scene. And I’ll bet that conversations like the OP’s were quite common and just as venomous right after landlines became a “one for everyone” kind of thing.

I honestly don’t get the hatred aimed at cell phones. People are just as capable of being rude and obnoxious without one as with one. Yes, there are rude, loud, cellphone users who use them in inappropriate places and times. Just as there are rude, loud talks-in-inappropriate-places-and-times talkers (or shouters).

As in the “baby crying DO SOMETHING” thread and the linked news report about the screaming pool kids, society has just gotten ruder and terribly inconsiderate toward their fellow human beings period. Cellphones or no cellphones.

18

I knew this going in and was trying to pre-empt your buzzkill with my parenthetical acknowledgement of MPD, while also trying to play (poorly) on the fact(?) that many people confuse the two afflictions. I took a bit of artistic license(schizo is such a funnier than word than MPD/DD) and got called for it, but I assure that I didn’t mean you or your strangely beloved goat any harm.

19

Me: Cell phone use is prohibited at the table.
Dumbfuck: But I’m not in the hand.
Me: Cell PHONE use is PROHIBITED at the table.
Dumbfuck: leans back or turns head
Me: Sir, Cell phone use is prohibited at the table. Please step away from the table.
Dumbfuck: BITCH!
Me: yelling Supervisor, Table 14!

Lather, rinse, repeat.

My favorites are the regulars who forget. I can do a quick cut it out motion with my hand and they typically “EEK! I have to get off the phone, BYE!” Or saying “I know you couldn’t POSSIBLY be using a cell phone at my table, because I KNOW that you know better, I must be mistaken.” and before I’m done, they have hung up. :slight_smile:

20

It took me a few minutes to realize you were talking about casino poker. (ETA: And even then, it was one single line that told me that this was the situation you were talking about.)

I can’t believe that the kind you mention in the dialog don’t see the HUGE potential for, I dunno, CHEATING with those things.