I hope it DOES cause brain cancer you cellularpathic twit

The BBQ Pit
21

Loved the rant until we got here

Personally I have never found much joy in watching folks be victims to their psychoses. For the record, we encourage folks beseiged with voices to carry old mobile phones about to hopefully lessen the stigma involved in speaking back to them. Really sorry if that gets in the way of your daily chuckles. Of course he may have been speaking to friends or family, people with mental illness have as much right to communication as anyone else. :rolleyes:

Take away that stunning example of how far we have to go as a community in dealing with mental illness and it wasn’t a bad rant. Pity.

22

well, that and the whole wishing brain cancer on them thing.

23

I thought your rant was great, and right on the mark…until this part:

Like Crusoe, I use good etiquette practices when talking on my cell phone. I never use it at restaurants and other busy/very loud/very quiet places, never use it in coffee shops (I usually go to a local place that has both outdoor and indoor tables; if for some reason I feel the need to blab on my cellphone, I go outside and carry on my short conversation there), keep my public conversations short, avoid talking and driving at the same time when I can, and never talk on my phone in a line unless I’m saving a life (which I don’t find myself doing all that often). But you’d like to cut off all my legitimate, responsible, and thoughtful cellphone use, just because some people use cellphones in irresponsible/non-thoughtful ways.

Brain cancer and car accidents seem a little too much to wish on these people, anyway, no?

24

Aside from the lady that was holding up the line and the guy who cut you off (people are maniacs on the road anyway, with or without cell phones), I don’t see how people talking on cell phones affect you.

Would it be less annoying if these same people were having the same conversation in person?

You know, if they weren’t having the conversations in public, they’d be doing it at home anyway. If they don’t affect you, why is it important what they do, and where they do it?

25

he he he
when people leave their phone on a desk at work, the pub or when they’re at my place, I like to change their greeting and all of their ring tones to the most annoying one i can find.

e.g My boss’s phone now has “I Suck Cock” as the greeting and he can’t change it. Been there for a few weeks now.

My girlies phone has had all of her friends names changed to their nicknames and her voicemail message changed to me telling the dog off including him barking and growling at me.

New phones with camera = take photo of ass and put back quietly, wait for shock.

Mind you I have three of the little fuckers myself but if I’m using one and you talk to me and i don’t answer, I’d expect a quick smack in the head, reverse works for other people. One is on my keyring, my personal mobile, very handy when I loose my keys!!

Another doozy is setting the alarm to 0340 am.

26

How exactly do cellphones cause cellularpathic twits lose the ability to interact with other people? (italics mine)

27

My dad’s job (journalist) required him to use cellular phones since the first ones became available to the public. He was not an asshole with them. He did, however, die of brain cancer.

28

What exactly do you think people are doing when they are talking on their phones? They’re conversing with people; they are communicating, they are interacting with others. The mentally ill aside, people are not chatting into the ether–they’re doing business, or to talking to their friends or family.

Cell phone proliferation has increased the level of social interaction people enjoy. We are not increasingly “insulated”; we are more connected than ever before.

Whiners aside, who gives a shit if I’m talking on the phone in the supermarket or in a public place, as long as I’m sufficiently aware of my surroundings so as not to inconvenience others? I probably wouldn’t be talking to a bunch of strangers anyway–so I may as well be having a chat with someone I care about.

29

What infuriates me is to see these little 5’2" twits who are unable to control a Chevy Suburban with their undivided attention leave the grocery store and fire up the cell phone as they hop in and start backing that behemoth out of a crowded parking lot. I am just SURE that conversation is SO important!!

30

I think he meant insulated from other people you’re immediately around. The ones you’re bumping into and failing to make eye contact with because you’re on that life or death “what happened on The O.C. last night” phone call.

For me, cell phone conversations are annoying because people tend to naturally speak louder when they’re on cell phones. It’s weird. I notice myself doing it, too. That’s why I try to avoid having conversations on my cell outside of short business calls. I don’t know why, but people just tend to raise it up a notch or two. That, coupled with the fact that they’re generally not paying as much attention to their immediate surroundings, makes them annoying.

I think everyone who’s getting all offended here is guilty of some of the things the OP was talking about? Sorry, but, every last one of them sounded rude as hell. The lady in the cafe was holding up those around her, the lady in the resturant was being astonishingly rude to her companions, the mother in the store probably forgot she even had a kid with her (not to mention the fact that having a phone conversation while simultaniously having an interaction with another person, such as the cashier, is very rude), the girls in the food court were being rude to each other (and probably those around them, I believe it’d be rather hard to have a quiet cell phone convo in a food court), and people shouldn’t drive while having prolonged convos on their cell phones.

The defense of any of the behaviors described in the OP looks more like an attempt to justify rude behavior.

31

or, of course, for some of us, who haven’t commented on the cell phone users, perhaps it’s cause we’ve had loved ones die of brain cancer, or have some respect for those who suffer from mental illness, and are offended that such situations are used as the punch line of a rant.

32

Not meaning to be a prick, since I think you’re one of the more rational posters around here, but what courtesy does that lady owe the cashier?

33

Honestly… no. Without sound holy and perfect, I have to say, my cell phone stays off during the week and I turn it on during the weekend. It’s main function for me is voice mail since I don’t have an answering machine at home. The last real conversation I had on my cell phone was with my boss about a change in my work schedule, and that was over a week ago.

I can’t speak for all posters in this thread, but that was certainly not my point to justify anything. My point was: Why do you care? Unless it affects you directly, wishing brain cancer on someone is uncalled for.

That is not to say cell phone users don’t annoy me. When customers talk on their cell phones, oblivious to me, I will take that as a sign they are not ready to order and help the next person. If there is no one else around to be waited on, I will go do something else. If someone standing in line in front of me is holding up the line, I will either tap them on the sholder and tell them it’s their turn, or go ahead in front of them as they’re obviously not ready to order. When my friends start chit chatting on their phones, I will remind them that I am alive and it’s rude to carry on a coversation and ignore me completely. It also annoys me to no end when people talk on their phones in the library oblivious to the fact that it’s an area for quiet study.

Unless it affects me, what people do with their cell phones is not a problem for me, and I don’t see why it should be.

34

CnoteChris - It’s called being a good customer, and it’s every bit as important as offering good service to your customers.

Also known as common curtesy.

Anyway, it was a decent rant, excepting the already-mentioned brain cancer and mental illness bits.

35

My husband and I were in Petsmart today. The woman at the register immediately before us had her dog with her and he’d peed on the floor right in front of the counter. We stepped around it and pulled our cart way away from the counter to avoid rolling through it. The checker came around to our side with his wand to scan our items.

All the while, the woman who’d walked up behind us was yacking away on her phone. Both the checker and I had told her to watch out for the puddle. I even pointed to it. I guess her call was more important than her shoes, because in spite of having been warned twice and watching the checker come 3 feet away from the counter to scan items still in our cart, she stepped right smack dab in the puddle of pee. And she didn’t even hang up when we pointed to her foot and showed her that she was standing in dog pee!

I’m sorry, but it serves her right for not paying attention.

Great rant.

(And I’m pretty sure the cancer and car wreck wishes were purely hyperbole, meant only to make the rant a bit more colorful. I doubt he really wants people to die for using their cell phones. Really.)

36

Ok. Firstly, the rant is directed at people who ignore others around them due to their cell phone use. Granted not everyone is like this, but I think the majority of users are.
I own a cell phone, but my conversations are short and to the point. Myself, I don’t have a need to gab at people in the supermarket or while I’m waiting for my car to fill with gas OR while I’m having dinner with my family. I think talking on the phone the entire time your sitting at a table with other is just plain rude. Sorry, that’s just me.

Yes, I have used my cell phone in stores. But not to talk about the weather, mostly just to say “Honey? Do we need milk? No? Ok. Need anything? Ok. Bye.”

Second, I don’t REALLY wish people get brain cancer nor do I REALLY want them to crash on the highway. That was my comic releif. Sorry I’m not as PC as I should be.

The crack about the crazy guy who wasn’t a crazy guy but just someone on handsfree was a joke. It used to be everyone you saw walking down the street alone talking loudly WAS a crazy person. Now, you just don’t know for sure. But I will say this. If you are walking down the street and someone can’t see you’re on the telephone, they WILL think you’re a crazy person.

CnoteChris: Nope. It wasn’t me who used to bitch about Walkmen. I’ll tell you why. Most people turned them off while attempting to interact with other people. People also didn’t interact the same way with headphones. There is a difference between listening to music and having to focus on a conversation. I’m sorry, but some people just CAN NOT focus on a conversation on the telephone while doing other things in society.

The woman in the store with her child was talking about a dress and some shoes for part of the time. She was ignoring her child for that? Now 20 minutes into this womans life will no way represent her regular interaction with the kid, but I just find it kind of sad for the kid. I wonder how he feels that mom is more interested in talking to someone on the phone (which, from what I could hear, was just gossip and drab conversation) then paying attention to him. I just thought it was weird to ignore a kid like that.

I guess if one can interact in public while having a conversation on the phone, I don’t have a problem. If you’re in front of me in line and you’re on the phone and it sounds very important, I don’t have a problem. But if you’re going to hold up the line because “OH MY GAWD. I KNOW!” then you’re going to piss me off. Take the phone away from your face, shove it up your ass and move through the line like everyone else.

If you’re on the phone and you hit a car with yours BECAUSE you’re on the phone, THEN YOU SHOULDN’T BE ON THE FUCKING PHONE! Like pointed out above, people drive like idiots without having a distraction. This is why it is illegal in some countries to talk on a regular cell phone while driving. People get too involved in the conversation, they are controlling a fast moving auto with only one hand and then “Oh My Gawd. I KNOW!” and BOOOM, they rear end someone.

If I got hit by some cow who thought the conversation about her shoes was more important then controlling her car, you bet I’d want to shove that cell phone right up her ass.

37

oh yea. comic relief. sure.

It isn’t “PC” related, it is, I would have thought, common sense/common courtesey related. Brain cancer is a real disease, very painful. and for those of us who’ve had a loved one die that way, not fucking funny at all, thank you very much (RIP dad, August 7, 2003).

Clue - if you’re going for comedy, think of, say, the cartoons - they have comic deaths in them all the time. Not one is cancer.

and, clue #2 - if you wish to have your ‘appology’ taken seriously, try actually making one instead of the ‘oh, sorry, I was trying to be funny and you got all pc about it’.

38

Just a thought regarding the guy with two phones: My SO’s father is a psychiatrist, and on the weekends when he’s on call, he carries a cell phone that belongs to the hospital, which is used specifically to contact the on-call doctor if there is a need to. Often, if we are out somewhere, he will also carry his own cell phone, in order to keep in touch with his SO or whoever might call him. He isn’t allowed to receive personal calls on the hospital cell phone. I’ve rarely seen him use either, but the point is having two phones doesn’t mean you’re obsessed with them, it might just mean that one is required for work and the other is a personal one.

39

Lezlers has hit the nail on the head.

What People Don’t Know (but what the objectors are free to educate them about) is that people speak at the volume level their Cell phone speaker is set at. Its the same thing with the stereo in your car; the louder it is set at, the louder you talk/yell.

Once callers realize this, unless they are hard of hearing (and no, this Isn’t a jab at people who are hard of hearing), they’ll recalibrate the phone to a lower speaker output and speak in lower tones…possibly inaudible tones as far as the objectors are concerned (And BTW, I don’t think of Lezlers as one of the objectors). And after all, if a cell phone rings in the forrest, and you can’t hear the ring or the conversation, then what the hell business is it of yours anyways?

BTW- Most of those same people who cut you off in traffic while talking on the phone Still would have cut you off. People just don’t suddenly find manners just because they’re off the phone. It seems like one tenth of all the threads on this board are Driving Rants, so I know the roads have more than their fair share of bad drivers. Someone who drives like a Jerk is going to drive like a Jerk no matter what they are holding in their hand (PDA, Gameboy, coffee, lipstick, electric shaver, whatever…).

40

Oh, man, tea shits are the worst. I thought orange-juice shits were bad, because of the high acidity, but with tea shits you get all that caffeine making your anus hyper.

Mount whatever you want in hats and umbrellas, but I’d steer clear of the tea shits. You don’t want to mess around with them.

Although it might cut down on the occurrence of people using their cell phones in the bathroom.