Cell phones: Is a day of reckoning coming?

If you're texting at a four-star restaurant, you need to check yourself.

 

Parts of this thread remind me of this Jerry Seinfeld bit: "Men definitely hit the remote button more than women. See, men don't care what's on TV; men only care what else is on TV."

 

Ugh. Who said inning-by-inning updates of a game? I mean, even I'd admit that's a bit much. And I certainly wouldn't excuse myself. I'd check right there at the table. Unless there's brisket on the table. The game can wait.

 

I am like most in that I can't be more than a few feet from my phone at all times (even if I don't actually use it).

But your analogy above reminds me of the ONE night that I forgot to take my phone off silent after work. It was the night my daughter was in her car accident in Austin, while I was in Houston.

Turns out is was a slight blessing in disguise. Someone did finally reach me (a friend banging on my door at 4 a.m.). But it was a friend, someone I knew that woke me up in the middle of the night. And though I knew at that moment something was wrong, I heard it from her, not from the paramedics who had tried to call while they were also simultaneously trying to remove my unconscious daughter from the vehicle.

The point of the story is that it somewhat proves your point. What good would it have done for me to get THAT phone call and hear that and not know anything. Instead, I got to hear from someone who personally knows me, a few hours later, once we knew that my daughter was going to be OK.

And yes, I make sure I don't leave it on silent at night anymore, but I sure am glad I wasn't attached to the phone that particular night.

 

and that's a ridiculous fucking statement i could give two shits what you do with your time. fuck you if you care what i do with mine.

 

Seems like you're very carefree.

 

When I go out to dinner with a friend, I like to take a favorite book. Every once in a while I will pull out the book and read a couple pages while they chit-chat away.

 

you know, for a right-wing toolnutz, you make me stop and laugh my ass off quite a bit, tiger.
nice post.

 

Now, hypothetically, had she gotten into that accident in Houston, how much would your story have changed? Even if you can't contribute medically, being there has its own value when it's possible.

I remember one night, about 3 a.m., I was in bed, starting to fall asleep, when my phone rang. It was a friend, not a particularly close friend but one of the few people I could call friend in my new city, halfway across the country from where I'd spent most of my life. He, too, was not from the area, and he had been arrested for drunk driving. He needed someone to pick him up.

I answered the call, then answered the Call. That experience made us much closer, and he's now one of my better friends on this mudball, to crib 3OctaveFart. It wouldn't have happened if I had turned my phone off. And he would have spent the night in jail.

 

3/4 of these idiots would have been waiting for their land line to ring.

 

I don't think anyone is complaining about the technology per se. Just the failure of etiquette to keep pace with it.