Notes from the Edge 05-12-2024

Today the
topic is Cell Phones…📱

Cell Phones: Tin cans and
string: This Cell phone thing is my generation’s fault. I’ll fess up right here.
We tied string to tin cans, pretended they were loud and clear radios, and
dreamed of networks of tin cans and string. Okay, I dreamed of networks
of tin cans and string. I think a few of my friends did too, but I won’t put
them on the spot. But, someone must have besides me, because we grew up looking
for that tin can.

We spawned
children with that tin can thing embedded in their DNA. That and the
Communicator from Star Trek. If that wasn’t a glimpse into the future and cell
phones, I don’t know what it was. It was inevitable, and we should have known
it as soon as some fool back in the fifties gave us Walki Talkies.

It was almost
a reality right there. Probably good enough for some of us, but no, not for all
of us. Some said…

“Hey,
Bob. What if I could talk to Tim, Ellie and even my sister Sherry with these
things?”

“Well,
Bob says. “Why would you want to talk to your sister Sherry? She’s a
girl.”

“Oh…
Right… Never mind.”

But then
some other guy went… “Hey, Bob. What if I could talk to anyone I wanted
to with this thing? I mean like anywhere?”

“Well,”
Bob said. “We’d have to make them affordable… Put them in the hands of
people everywhere. We’d have to build relay stations… We’d… We could do
it! We could!”

And so,
Marketing and the Cell Phone industry was born right there. And Bob probably
headed it. Now we all have Cell Phones, and we might as well be welded to them,
or they to us.

Last week I
remembered I had a cell phone for a reason. To make calls to people, or so that
people could reach me. I was watching a really stupid movie at the time. Four
young people stranded in the desert. The moron dude (There is always a moron
dude who does the dumb thing that puts them all in the bad situation), so, the
Moron Dude wrecks the truck and they’re stranded in the desert. So, what does he
do first? Tries his cell phone. And does it work? Of course not. And, I
thought, hmm, I have a cell phone, what if I paid all this money for minutes,
and, and (I tend to get excited when I think of stupid things that just
might be possible) I get stranded in the desert, and I flip open my Cell
phone, and I have, like, 300 minutes, so I sigh, relieved, I will not die in
the desert and the young woman med student won’t have to pound a hole in my
head to relieve the fluid buildup so I will live! That was what she (The
med student) had just finished doing to one of the people in the movie,
pounding a hole in her head to relieve the pressure buildup. Hmm. It didn’t
work too well. The person still died. Now, my characters do things too. But I
have yet to write a scene where one actually pounds a hole into another
character’s head with a fracking rock.

I’ll tell
you; I was relieved. I have enough holes in my head (Some say). Then I
remembered the scenario. Minutes don’t matter. Reception matters.
So, in my head, in my little world in the desert with the Moron Guy, and the
Med Student woman, I look down at my phone again. Damn. 300 minutes and no
bars. But, like the Moron Dude, I try it anyway. Doesn’t work. The young Med
Student woman is looking at me funny. Like she can’t wait to pound that hole in
my head. Son of a bitch, I think. This really sucks. Then I remember, it’s
not real. I am relieved again, except I am still watching this pathetic
movie, and I am looking at my cell phone and wondering why I welded myself to
it.

Anyway, dumb
movies aside, it really did get me thinking about my cell phone. I have this
many friends. (I’m holding up fingers on one of my hands). Let’s just
say it’s a small amount, I have fingers left over. Now, all of those friends
never call me on my cell phone. If they need to reach me they send an email or
call me on my land line. Yes, I have a land line. I know how pathetic that
sounds. And I rarely ever use it either. But that’s another blog. So, my
friends know my email address, and my home phone and my cell phone number, and
they never call me on the cell phone. Yet every month I buy minutes and put
them on the damn phone. So I must have thousands of minutes on the phone. Just
then the phone rang.

“Hello?”
I’m cautious. No one calls me here. “No one calls me here,” I say.

Turns out it
is a new-old friend. IE: One I knew years before who just reconnected and does
not realize no one calls me on my Cell Phone.

“Hey,”
I say. What else can I say? “No, you’re not bothering me,” I lie.
Then, the phone goes dead.

“Hello?
Hello?” I take the phone away from my ear and
stare at it as though that can fix it or at least tell me what is wrong. Nope.
five bars. Hey, wait a minute, no minutes! How can that be? I just ran out of
minutes on my cell phone. But I just put minutes on it. Hmm, a conundrum.

That lead
right into the stupid movie, and I realized, if it was me, my luck would be
that I would find I had a signal, and then discover that I had no
minutes. And so, I asked myself, why is that? And that is the crux of the
problem. Because, as I mentioned, no one calls me on my cell phone. So, where
do all the minutes go to? They go to all the other calls. The ones I didn’t ask
for. The Cell Phone Spammers. Yes. Those guys/gals/machines. They call all of
the time.

“Hi!
did you know that for just three hundred dollars a month you can get an
unlimited number of minutes,” the voice asks?

“Really,”
I ask?

The voice
just keeps yacking. It’s not a real voice. It’s a machine. But I’m lonely, they
know it, and they know I am stupid enough to listen to a machine… At least
for a little while.

“Press
One now for the Budget Plan. Press Two for the Super Business Package. Press
three for the…”

I hang up. Cell
Phone Hooker, I think.  I think some
other unkind things too, even though I know it is a machine. An hour later the
phone rings. I think, ‘I shouldn’t answer that. They probably just want to
sell me something.’ But I am stupid, or I have a defective gene, or both.

“Hello?
Is this a machine,” I ask right off the bat.

“No
sir,” a female voice. Heavy accent. “I am calling
regarding your account.”

“Oh…
Oh, sorry… I get these machine generated phone calls you see…” I shut up,
because of course it’s the Cell Phone. Yakking is money. “My
account?”

“Yes
sir… My records show that you have the Thrifty Budget plan. And I wanted to
make you aware of the Super Business Travelers plan.”

“Huh?”

“Your
Cell phone plan,” she explains.

“I
don’t have the Thrifty Budget plan,” I say.

“Are
you sure,” she asks?

“Mm,
yes,” I decide.

“Hold
on sir.” She sounds upset, leaves the line, and
like the idiot I am, I wait for her to come back. Ten minutes later she does.
“Sir?”

Probably she
is checking only to see if I was stupid enough to hang on. But, no, I answer. “Yes…
Ma’am.” I’m even polite. What an idiot.

“My
records show that you do not have the Thrifty Budget plan. Please forgive
me.”

And I am
ready and willing to forgive her. It’s hot over there in New Delhi, I watch Big
Bang Theory. I saw Slum Dog Millionaire. I know it’s got to be a hard job
working halfway around the worl… She interrupts me.

 So, Sir?” She waits
until I answer. The minute monster is eating my phone alive.

“Yes?”

“So,
wouldn’t this be a great time to get the Super Business plan?”

Finally, it
dawns on me. “Hey, are you from **** & ****?”(My phone
provider)

“Well,
no. I’m from **** *****.”

I hang up. I
feel used. Dirty. ‘Damn,’ I think. I am even cussing. ‘Damn Dirty
Ape. Frig!’ It is the most severe cussing I can come up with on short
notice.

Okay, so I’m
sitting there, and slow as I am, it finally dawns on me where all of my minutes
go, they go to answering the phone so these guys can sell me more minutes so I
can answer the phone, so they can sell me more minutes, so I can answer the
phone IF one of my friends ever call, and, as evidenced, if one of my friends
do call, I’ll have no minutes to talk to them. Boy, am I dumb. Hmm… Then I
think, well, I could just let the medical student woman in the movie pound the
hole in my head. Might be quicker, smarter too.

Okay, that’s
my week. I hope your week was good…

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