Democracy for Vancouver

I have to admit, I’m a heretic.
I’m a modern Luddite.
I really felt the brunt of my deviation from society when I attempted to simply pay for a purchase at Radio Shack (actually, I get that feeling most of the time when I venture into Retailia, Generica). My doe-eyed little checker asked who was my service provider and I had to take a second to recall what that term meant. When she asked it again, I told her I didn’t have one. I meant a cell-phone. She thought I was joking.
Lots of people do.
My logic in this choice falls somewhere between the old-timey thinking that a hundred years ago went something like “there’s nothing wrong with walking over to Johnson’s store to use their phone – works just fine!”, to outright post-millennial paranoia.
That and a huge list of irritations and/or grievances related to cell-phones and the behavior of their two-legged host organisms.
Sour grapes? You decide.

I think for most folks, the most seminal Cell-Phone moment was when some futuristic high roller pulled one of those gigantic-sized, GI Joe walkie talkie looking jobs out of their pocket and began talking to someone on it. It was usually in the middle of a busy check out area. And Mr. High-Roller would loudly exclaim something to the effect of “That’s right, I’m talking to you from the STORE! I’m talking on my CELLULAR TELEPHONE!”, all the while looking around the room at the looks of wonder and awe on the bystander’s faces.
After that moment of novelty and future shock wore off - and cell phones became more ubiquitous- endless variations on that theme became downright irritating, even to people who would be perpetrating the same crime later.

I’ll never forget my moment of cell phone rage saturation, where I realized that social boundaries and a sense of privacy could dissolve in seconds. I was browsing around a large retail chain music store when a middle class looking slacker kid (Let’s call him Mookie) wandered in while conducting a conversation on his phone. He was telling someone all about the trials and tribulations of so and so, apparently mutual friends with relationship problems. All of us in the room were spared no detail, grievance, trespass allegedly committed by the guilty party. It was if all of us in the room were transported to the bedroom of Mookie, instead of a place of business and I resented it. Mookie, on the other hand, represents an ever increasing segment of our population that has had his head in his own little narcissistic bubble for so long that he either regards other people as simply a painted mural on the wall of his narrow bubble of perception, or thinks everyone is intrigued by his social interactions with unseen friends. I’d rather be subjected to second hand smoke than to have to listen to someone with inadequate social boundaries and no sense of shame ululate endlessly about themselves. Unfortunately that situation has multiplied by the thousands and is scarcely considered offensive anymore – save a few uppity bookstores or coffee shops (thanks, Powell’s!).

As stated earlier, I don’t own one myself, mainly out of economic considerations, but occasionally flirt with the idea of buying one on a Pay-As-You-Go plan (the type terrorists and other poor people prefer, according to Michelle Malkin) but stop short, owing to a fear that I’ll become one of those helpless shlubs that I see in grocery stores, frantically trying to get in touch with their spouse in order to buy exactly the right brand of mayonnaise. Or couples who use cell phones to turbo charge their codependency, letting each other know their every move, their every breathe.
Or the jerks who pace up and down the video rental new release aisle, reading the plot synopsis off the back of each and every new movie to some jerk on the other end.

Add to all those wonderful things the joy that other people’s ring-tones bring into our lives. My high point is when I’m at some public event and someone’s phone goes off and it’s a truly obnoxious song, like Europe’s The Final Countdown, or anything by Eminen. The offending phone’s owner looks around, as if someone else would have the same jerk-wad song, letting the song play several verses in before finally answering it or shutting it off. By this time nearly everyone in the room has thought of a unique and horrible way to dispatch Mr. Slow-on-the-Draw. I really think that people like that believe that their choices of ring-tones are clever and would risk irritating others in a dubious display of their individuality.
Although much is still made about folks driving while talking on the phone, have you noticed how the debate surrounding this issue got drowned out by the drone of everyone’s phone ringing at once? Now nearly three quarters of the cars out there have someone driving while talking to someone else – someone who’s probably in another car. I know I myself couldn’t safely drive a car AND conduct a real phone conversation. No doubt some can, but I don’t know how many times I’ve been dangerously cut off or nearly run off the road by someone who was clearly talking on the phone and completely oblivious to their immediate environment.
A headset isn’t the total cure for that either. Although they free up one hand, they can’t augment an otherwise occupied brain.

Or can they? Bluetooth phone accessories are a godsend - if you happen to be a car-bound salesperson, a telemarketer or fighter pilot. Why then does nearly every nerdy male in his late thirties or early forties have one of these leech-like devices clamped to their ear? Who do they think they are? The President of the United States doesn’t even have one of these and he’s supposed to have his finger near a nuclear launch button at all times. Do they think it looks cool? Does a fantasy scenario flash through their head when they’re wandering the aisles of CompUsa?:
“Hi, I’m sure you know my name. I’m Jennifer Connelly.
I couldn’t help but notice that you have a Bluetooth enabled headset on. You’re clearly the man I’m looking for. Someone smart, with it and – above all -VIRILE!
I need to have a baby, RIGHT NOW!
COME ON- I’M OVULATING! “
That must be it.
I’m sorry to have to break it to you Lobot, but the day that you have to strap a telephone to your head, you are surrendering your human identity. You are now a cyborg controlled by your service provider.

With everyone talking on cell phones at once, are we really communicating anything? Has this new connectivity really connected anyone?
It seems like for all of our gadgets and gizmos and an ever increasing array of boxes we can stick our heads in, the chasm between all of us seems deeper and wider.
Perhaps all men are islands. With cell towers on each one of them.