05.11.07
d’ya ever feel like…
D’ya ever feel like it would be spiffing to run away to someplace really isolated, like some hermitage off the Basque coast or something, where there is no phone, no Internet, and the mail comes once a week by donkey?
I do. And I have to say that nothing brings these fantasies to the fore like being forced to listen to other people’s lengthy cellphone conversations. I find myself really missing the days when telephones had cords that plugged into the wall and therefore, most telephone conversations took place indoors where they could be avoided, and not in various places where the conversations (or their side effects) cannot be avoided, such as on the sidewalk, at the bus stop, in the park, in shops, at theatres, in restaurants, in museums, and let’s not forget, whilst driving cars.
I’m past weary of hearing other folks’ inane chatter. I swear that 2/3 of the people I encounter with their cellular phones surgically attached to their heads really are afraid (pace Douglas Adams) that if they stop talking, their brains will start working. Also, the next person I encounter walking down the street yelling obscenities into hir cellular phone — whether in a jovial blurt or a hostile snarl I care not — is in serious danger of having me go Full Metal Schoolteacher.
I note the irony of complaining about this via blog. I console myself with the facts that blogs are opt-in and, for the most part, silent.
Okay, maybe the isolated hermitage off the Basque coast could have Internet. For an hour or two every morning, or something. But no phones. And no cellular phone coverage. And the mail would still come once a week by donkey.