HANG UP AND GET A LIFE

      
      Lately, I can’t stand in line at the post office or  supermarket without having to listen to somebody blathering away on a cell. A therapist discussing a patient’s fantasies. A woman telling  her friends about the cute new guy at work. A man describing exactly how he feels about his hemorrhoids and what he’s going to do about them.   These people are suffering from Compulsive Cell Phone Disorder.  They need to hang up and get a life.
      There are the conversations so personal they make you squirm. And  the mind-numbingly dull ones, usually delivered at top volume. “I’M AT THE TRAIN STATION!“  “I‘M WAITING FOR A TRAIN!”    Worst of all, there’s the frustration of being able to hear only one side of a juicy conversation.
      “That’s outrageous!  I can’t believe he actually said that to her!”
      “What did he say?” I want to demand.
      I’ll never know.
      Sometimes I think I’m the only person left who isn’t on the phone.  Remember when people used to talk to each other in line? Maybe you’d make a new friend. At least, you’d connect, if only briefly. Those chances to connect are gone.
      I was out walking yesterday when I saw a neighbor striding toward me, a woman I like but rarely get a chance to talk with. I would have stopped to chat but she was on the phone. She gave me a cheerful wave as she breezed by, talking.. A few blocks later I saw another neighbor, out running. She ran effortlessly, looking fabulous in spandex so tight that pockets were out of the question. She carried her  phone in one hand.  She wasn’t even talking. She just needed it with her. What was so crucial, I wondered, that it couldn’t wait until she finished her run?
      The saddest thing is what cell phones have done to the connection between parents and  children.  My son is lucky. At eighteen,  he’s a member of the last generation of kids to enjoy their parents’ undivided attention. When Tom was little, we’d go to the playground and he’d run and climb and slide while I called out encouragement. Now I see children on the playground whose parents are too busy talking on their cells to focus on them.  This is a loss for the child. But it’s also a loss for the parent. To bond with a child, you need to enter their world. The smallest things become meaningful and exciting --  a robin. A great slide. A really cool truck! To connect like this is a gift, and it isn’t going to  happen if you’re on the phone.
      When I pushed my toddler in his stroller, we’d talk with each other about what we passed. I loved those conversations. Parents still push children in strollers, but now Mom chats on her cell instead of with her child.  The kids are  silent,  or else they jabber away themselves, talking to nobody.
      My dad died this summer. He had a stroke and never regained consciousness. Coming into his hospital room moments after he’d passed,  I saw two family members  by his bedside, both on their cells.  Heartbroken, they were absorbed in their calls, turned away from my father on the hospital bed.   It was necessary to make those calls, to spread the news, to seek consolation. But you’d think that at least for a few moments we could just be there on our own with Dad.
      I’m not a religious person, but I like to think  I’ll see Dad again. And when I get to Heaven, I’m guessing there won’t be a single cell phone.
      If there is, I’ll know I’m in Hell.     
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Thema Magazine, Spring 2008