Cell Phones

Published in the Desert Valley Times
April 5, 2005

I love the new generation of cellular phones.
What I find most amazing is the plethora of choices now available for ring tones.
You know, the noise a phone makes when someone wants to talk to you?
Back when I was a kid, (when phones were first invented, according to my youngest daughter), the tone was actually a bell.
I know, hard to believe.
Then, in the 80’s and 90’s, we had electronic beeps and chirps to let us know when it was time to pick up the phone and utilize that time-honored of greetings.
We used to say “Hello?” with a certain amount of anticipation or dread instead of just glancing at the caller I.D. and saying “’Sup, gurrul?”
Today, the sound has been replaced by rap music, and sounds that mimic car engines with a bad fan belt, and an electronic impersonation of Celine Dion.
(Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between the three.)
Yep, now people can be annoyed in public by a whole spectrum of new
sounds.
I’m waiting for the first time a solemn church service is interrupted by some of the, um, shall we say “colorful” language of a 50 Cent ring tone.
I’ve noticed a phenomenon that should be added as one of the corollaries to Murphy’s Law.
The more obnoxious the ring tone, the louder the volume setting.
As if the tune “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” isn’t annoying enough to get someone’s attention, the phone-owner has to have it set for “jet-engine loud” so everyone in the movie theatre can enjoy the nerve-grating serenade.
There is another facet to the ring-tone craze that once again shows that I’ve outlived my usefulness on this planet.
(Warning: Another “Back when I was a kid” moment dead ahead.)
Back when I was a kid, my friends and I collected baseball trading cards, Matchbox cars, and pennies.
Today, kids are collecting ring tones.
You can download them from this thing called the “Internet,” store them in your cellular phone, and trot them out whenever life isn’t keeping you distracted enough with TV, TIVO, CD, DVD, DSL, PS2, MP3, R2D2, C3PO, or LMNOP.
(Okay, I made up the last one, but I’m optimistic that a rapper will soon glom onto it as his stage/’hood name, leading to thousands of gangsta dollars heading my way in the form of royalties.)
While some of the sounds can be annoying, the positive is that the distinctive rings help people discern when it’s their phone ringing instead of the person next to them.
Before the unique tones, business meetings resembled a convention of gunslingers at high noon.
An electronic noise would sing out, and thirty businessmen would simultaneously slap their right sides at belt level like Clint Eastwood reaching for his gun, each checking to see if it was his phone making the sound.
Those who didn’t win the cell phone lottery would grin sheepishly like the gunslinger who accidentally shot the school marm.
“It wasn’t me,” they offer, leaving others around them to figure out whether the guy is referring to his silent phone or that taco-tainted aroma now filling the room.
The only thing that rivals the avalanche of ring tone options in oddness is the proliferation of cell phone ear attachments.
(Warning: Final “Back when I was a kid” moment fast approaching.)
Today, you can find people walking the halls of a building or strolling the aisles at a local store with a wire dangling from their ear, talking to themselves.
They’re called “savvy business people.”
Back when I was a kid, we just called them “crazy."