Degas understood how a person might feel. Absinthe, anyone?
Repeat after me: “My phone is not invited to all of life’s parties.”
I know you’ve heard this before, but I’ve got to, GOT to share.
- WATCHING a movie, sitting near me: tippity, tappity, snort and giggle! all through the feature.
- DRIVING in the lane next to me: tippity, tappity, LOL, swerve into my lane.
- EATING across the table from me: tippity, tappity, slightly unfocused glance back up at me every few minutes to give the illusion you’re listening to what I’m saying.
Here’s a news flash – you are NOT giving that illusion. Nobody believes you are listening. Especially when it penetrates your phone-daze that I’m waiting for you to reply, and it’s obvious that you have absolutely no idea what I just said.
You take a chance and go with a vague smile and little laugh. Eventually you’ll realize I just told you I had been bitten by a rabid tsetse fly and would be dead in 2 days. Will it occur to you that laughing may not have been the best response to my statement that this was our farewell dinner? That I’ll be foaming at the mouth by morning and gone the next day? You probably won’t even notice, unless Ashton Kutcher tweets from my funeral.
How do you think people feel when they realize you’re more concerned with whatever the little men inside your magic box have to say, than what THEY are sharing in real-time and real-life?
To protect the guilty I’m not naming names, but for the love of Pete (and Peg), please…
just STEP AWAY FROM THE PHONE
just PUT…THE PHONE… BACK
That way, nobody gets hurt.
Not you, when I hit you upside the head.
Not me, when I think I’m not important to you.
Disclaimer: this rant is NOT aimed at my hubby.
Exclaimer: if you think this rant COULD be aimed at you, it probably is! Even if I don’t know you.
Peg-o-Leg's Ramblings 
Thank you. Sticking this in hubby’s briefcase and making extra copies. You know, for distribution when necessary. 😉
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I had to put that hubby disclaimer on the bottom to maintain peace in the family, but…
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Don’t you think it might be more effective to text it to him?
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Touché.
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Amen, Peg!! I “love” when Peppermeister says we can only watch certain things on the DVR, but then just plays with his phone while we’re supposed to be watching! And then he gets mad at ME when I say, “Screw this. I’m turning on 19 Kids and Counting!”
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Holla! I’ve been there, done that. It’s why I won’t get a smart phone – I know I would be way to undisciplined to stay off the thing for more than a few minutes at a time. That’s why we don’t have the interwebz at home. That, and because I’m a caveman.
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I couldn’t beat um so regretfully, I joined um. tippity, tappity
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Noooooo! There’s still time – even Darth Vader turned away from The Dark Side at the very end.
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I sense a great disturbance in the network…
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ha ha ha!
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We need a good old fashioned Brothers Grimm cautionary tale for public cell phone fixation.
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My next project is going to be a book of children’s stories updated for modern times. Yup. Got it right in the hopper, ready to go. Someday.
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Chapter 1: The Girl and the Screens
Chapter 2: The Boy and the Screens
Chapter 3: The Girl and Boy and Wolf and the Screens
…
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Over the weekend a driver on his cell swerved off the road and killed two pedestrians here in the Denver area 😦
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Oh, good Lord. On a totally unfunny note, I’m constantly lecturing my kids about this, and I’m pretty sure they do it anyway. It’s so scary.
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(Squinting at computer screen, entralled with your post) Uh huh…(tippity) Oh, Peg this post is hilarious with the–oh, hold on a sec…(tappity) And the part about the–(puts finger up to pause and giggle while looking down in lap again) yeah, the part about the–(furiously tippitying and tappitying) with the thing about the Ashton Kutcher tweet thing and the–(tippity, tappity, more giggling) I’m sorry, what were you saying again?
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All you tippity-tappity types will get carpel-thumb syndrome and will be paralyzed by the time you’re 50. That is the thought that comforts me.
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Oh yeah, me too. I don’t own a smaht phone. I don’t even have a dumb one. (but I do have lots of lame jokes to spare apparently…)
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Can you confirm the spelling of “tsetse?” I want to text that line to a friend of mine… thx! TTYL!
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Gotta admit I looked it up…twice. That’s just how creepy/obsessed I can get. I always thought there was a hyphen in the middle.
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I didn’t mean to imply I doubted your spelling. I believe you do all your research before posting. I’m certain tsetse flies can be rabid, for instance.
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Can you hear the standing ovation I started? No? Just a minute.
“Hey everybody, stand up, put down your phones and CLAP!”
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That’s one of the many problems with everybody having their phones practically surgically attached – it’s hard to get a good standing O going.
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Great post, but the title has sparked an internal debate about which activity is worse. I think I’d rather have the random stranger sitting next to me in the dark in the movie theater playing with his phone than playing with himself.
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Oh, er…yeah. I’d have to go along with you there. For sure.
(I first read your comment as that it had sparked an “internet debate” and I’m all, like “Great! Bring it!” But an “internal debate” is almost as good, so…great!)
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I don’t think of this as a rant; I think of this as a perfectly legitimate request for civility in a society that has slipped into some kind of lapse of common courtesy. Bravo to you! (But I’m kind of old, too, so consider the source of your support on this one… ) 😐
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Well said! we need more civility in this world!
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I had such a rant at my grandson last week. I picked him up from school and after a cursory Hello Ganma he started to text. I pointed out that he made me feel like the driver and if that was how he saw me I wouldn’t bother to make the one hour trip to pick him up. i just don’t know what the obsession with texts is. I do send text messages occasionally but never when I am with somebody else, unless there is an emergency.
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I hear ya! I know it’s partly a generational thing, but it is still rude. I don’t care HOW old you are.
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I would totally jump on board the rant train. I pride myself on being pretty calm and collected… once in a while. The other day I smacked a brand new iPhonePad thingy from my sister’s hands. The other day was not one of the once’s in once in a while.
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I know you were provoked beyond reason, Tori. She had it coming.
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Sing it, Peg! Reason #8678 why I don’t own a smart phone. (That and because I’m too cheap/inexperienced with new technology to figure one out.)
I’m happy that you were fake bitten by a tsetse fly and not by a “TESTES” fly like I first read. I was thinking to myself, “Illinois has TESTES flies?! Note to self: NEVER GO THERE!” But if it’s only tsetse flies, I’m game. 🙂
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So first guy says to the second guy, “Did you ever smell moth balls?”
Second guy: “sure!”
First guy: “how’d you get their little legs apart?”
Sorry. Dana made me go there.
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Ha! I’ve never heard that one before. The 7-year old boy inside of me is THRILLED! [rushing off to tell everyone she knows about moth balls]
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I would only try that one out on friends who also have an internal 7-year-old boy.
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You are fabulous so I nominated you for the Versatile Blogger Award!
Come on over to pick it up!
http://superurbangeek.wordpress.com
Keep up the good work!
Congrats!
Urban Geek
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Well thank you so much! I am way, way too lazy to ever do the follow-up work involved in awards (although I would probably make an exception if there was a huge, cash bonus included), but I really appreciate the shout out.
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of course! your dose of humour is great for me, especially when I need an escape from the mundane! Keep up the great work pegoleg! 🙂
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So daughter’s boss gave her tickets to a concert. That was nice. Daddy happened to text her while she was leaving the concert. Daughter texts him back, doesn’t notice STAIRS in front of her. Falls down a flight of stairs, breaks foot one week before her new insurance kicks in. NOT funny. You already know I hate, despise, deplore Technoville except those musical notes are kinda cute.
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Ouch! Makes me think of that video from last year of the woman who fell right into a fountain at the mall because she was walking and texting.
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Yeah, and wasn’t she going to sue the mall or the camera person or some other random stranger besides herself for being such a twit? I love society…I really do.
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Not funny. I KNOW it’s not funny. And I’m not laughing, really. Not much. Although the term “poetic justice” keeps popping to mind.
Dang you for bringing up those notes AGAIN. I can’t do it on my computer. What do you mean hit the 13 or 14 key? C’mon, you’re just playin with my poor, old brain.
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Oh no…not the 13, 14 key…they don’t exist…try holding ALT with your left fingers, then with your right fingers strike 1+3 on the number pad, (not the numbers above the alpha). And don’t press +, first “1” then “3”, the same with “1” then “4”…voilá. Please let me know you’ve got it. Now if you’re working on a laptop, I’m not successful anymore. Once I had a laptop that had the num pad numbers, but not any more.
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My head is in a spin—phone texting moth ball flies? The hilarity never stops at Peg-O’s House of Rant!
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Jeez, when you put it that way, Sandy, it sounds kinda weird here.
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Do not get me started … do not let out that beast.
Cannot stand the fidgeting between verbal and virtual conversations. Unless, it is me trying to leave a comment, while the hubs is asking me a question.
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It has been suggested that this bugs me so, SO much because my aging, sausage-like fingers are not adept on the tiny keys. But that has nothing to do with it.
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Preach it Peg! I couldn’t agree with you more. This kind of behavior is not only selfish, ridiculous, and very rude, it’s also mindlessly dangerous when it involves roads and vehicles, and people’s lives are being endangered by self absorbed idiots oblivious to the fact that yes, your electronic hypnotic stupidity can be fatal!
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You are so right, Chris. Behind the wheel of a car it’s not funny at all. When I’m driving down the road and I see someone on their mini-computer I want to ram them off the road. I think a jury would understand, don’t you?
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We have a rule hear at table time (ANY TIME we arer eating meals)
No. Tecknology. AT. ALL. EVER.
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*here *bangs head on desk*
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and… Minus the r at the end of are.. *bangs repeatedly*
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oh. my goodness.. *blank stare*
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Um, Louella, are you typing this on a tiny, little smart-phone keyboard? Maybe while driving or at a movie theater? Just a thought. 🙂
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lol.. I was typing on a keyboard, that run out of batteries, then I tried to use speech recognition..
Suffice to say, I am new @ it, and it was not really working out so well… lol
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and.. Ohhhh Bugger… lol. I spelt technology tecknology.
*wails*
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It’s amazing how the phone has intruded into everything: bathroom stalls, restaurants, and those folks wearing Jawbones, traipsing down grocery aisles who look like they’re talking to the canned corn, just make me nuts. Some guy hauled his mom (via phone) to Subway and as they made her sandwich, he checked with her on every stupid vegetable, and type of chips. HINT: Write it down, next time you’ll know what she wants.. Okay. Thanks. I’ve got that out of my system so I don’t have to blog about it. I can just rant about it over here at your place.
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Betcha Mr. Can’t-Make-A-Decision-On-The-Chips still lives in her basement. Just sayin’.
By Jawbones do you mean blue tooth headsets? Cuz those have helped me out in the past. I did a post about that in the right hand column under my favorite,s “Using Technology To Avoid Commitment”.
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You know those homeless folks who seem to be talking to themselves as they wander through town? I bet they really are people who own bluetooth headsets.. (I’m sure the government subsidized said headsets…) Those things are far safer than texting. Used to use one when I would travel far distances for ministry, really helped me to keep my eyes on the road.
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That’s what I thought the first time I encountered somebody with a BlueTooth. You’re so right, though, I use mine almost all the time when driving.
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Let me guess, are the girls home from college? Thought so. I don’t even know how to send a text message on my phone so that clears me of any feelings of guilt as I read this.
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My girls? Of course not! Ha ha! Never, ever, ever!
She was home 2 weeks ago.
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This reminds me of when someone makes a completely inappropriate comment on one’s blog. Great post and it needs to be said a lot more often otherwise our species may mutate into hunched over, voiceless creatures who can only communicate with their thumbs.
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We only have the best future of mankind at heart, right?
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Pingback: “My phone is not invited to all of life’s parties.” « Dolce Vita
So true! I can totally relate!
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I know that YOU would never do this, right? What’s wrong with other people!
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Great post, Peg and I couldn’t agree more. I especially…er….agree….uh…with…excuse me,.. I thinks that’s my cell ringing……gotta take this……..
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That happened in the church last week. The poor little old lady couldn’t figure out how to get it out of her purse and turn the damn thing off! At least most kids are so adept and sneaky with them, only the tippity tappity gives them away.
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Pingback: C…. is for Creative… | I know my ABC's, and I can prove it!!
Timely, my dear Peg. Very timely. What if you texted the person and said, “Stop it!” 🙂
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That’s a great idea!!! hahaha. I’m going to try that next time.
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