Town & Country Social Graces by Jim Brosseau

Author:Jim Brosseau
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Hearst
Published: 2011-03-29T00:00:00+00:00

Cellular Phonies

by Pearson Marx

Whenever life starts feeling stale, I picture myself speeding along a desert highway, breezily waving at truckers, heading West. This remains the eternal American escape fantasy, so compelling that even a nervous nondriving urbanite like myself embraces it in moments of boredom. In this daydream, however, I do make one concession to modernity: My imaginary convertible comes equipped with a cellular phone. Suppose you run out of gas in the middle of nowhere or a soft-spoken serial killer stops to help you change a tire. Having a cell phone in your car can get you out of a tight spot—and possibly even save your life.

Yet this ersatz lifesaving device can be rife with its own mortal dangers. For example, while everyone knows not to drink and drive, gossiping and driving can be just as lethal. And don’t flight attendants routinely have to instruct passengers to turn off electronic gadgets before takeoff? I guess not even the possibility of a plane crash can unglue the garrulous from their cell phones.

In fairness, given that these devices are a relatively recent phenomenon, the rules of protocol governing their use have yet to be formally defined. What courtesy has always boiled down to, however, is a simple awareness of and consideration for those around you. Unfortunately, this is exactly what cell phones interfere with:

When you tune in the unseen party on the other end, you tune out those in your presence. (This affront goes beyond the wearing of headphones in public, when—unless you’re humming along with your Vivaldi—your lack of sociability is of a passive nature.)

We now ghettoize smokers to the farthest corners of restaurants for fear of secondary smoke; yet secondary babble, though it may not be a health hazard, can be just as irritating. We expect to hear the hum of voices while dining out, but what about when those voices are raised in spirited conversation not across a table but across the airwaves? In just such a setting a friend of mine endured what she has described as an all-time dating low: Her Prince Charmless spent the entire evening taking business calls on his cell phone. “I wish I’d stayed home and watched ‘Cops,’ ” my friend lamented.

On vacation, I lay by a pool attempting to enjoy the sun and my book—in vain, thanks to the men shouting stock orders into their phones on the chaise longues flanking me.

No matter where you find yourself these days, there seems to be no escaping the ubiquitous “cellular phony.” Shopping in a department store recently, I noticed a woman trying on shoes while she pressed a cell phone to her ear. On vacation, I lay by a pool attempting to enjoy the sun and my book—in vain, thanks to the men shouting stock orders into their phones on the chaise longues flanking me. Once, while crossing a city street, I barely managed to avoid being mowed down by a cell-phone–wielding Rollerblader (as if Rollerbladers themselves weren’t menace enough). I have seen people panting into their cellulars at the gym.

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