Giving In

I hate cell phones. Hate is not a word that I use lightly, but there is nothing I find more annoying than sitting in a lecture hall or a movie theater and hearing the familiar cackling screech of technology beckoning its owner to be readily available at all hours as I attempt to better understand Jurgen Habermas’s theories or enjoy a three dollar movie. There is nothing more rude than being stuck in close quarters, like one elevator that I had the displeasure of riding in, and listening to some hysterical 20 year old woman yelling into her cell phone at her boyfriend. Or possibly my worst experience with a cell phone was being seated next to a woman on the bus while she divulged her sexual exploits, in detail, to someone on the other end of the line.

I’ve proselytized about the evil of cell phones to my cadre of friends with little success. Most of them remind me that there are, of course, many advantages to having one: long distance calls are cheap, they make driving or late night walks home safer, they can be incredibly convenient.

During the end of January I gave in and bought a cell phone for, at least in some self-absorbed way I like to think, all the good reasons. I chose a compact, durable model that the salesman told me was made of the same plastic used in NFL players’ helmets and was popular with older folks who had trouble reading small numbers. I was psyched to have chosen the cheapest and least hip model. If I was going to give in to the cult of people who could be accessed at any given moment of any given day, I wanted to do it in the least narcissistic way possible.
Five months later, I try my best to remember all of the things I don’t like about cell phones. It’s my only phone so it works great for many a long distance call and when I’ve driving long distances, it’s certainly been functional.

But, however many ways I try and defend the decision, I know a little piece of my rebellious, idealized youthfulness died the day I entered the Sprint PCS store in Deerfield, Illinois and emerged with a Kyocera phone…a little piece of innocence I can never truly regain.