Can We Talk?

Maggie Simpson had her pacifier, George Burns had his cigar and Linus Van Pelt had his security blanket. Yesterday I realized that I too have a security blanket, the one thing I need to have with me twenty fours hours a day, for without it I would not be able to exist. My life would be horribly different, I wouldn't be able to function in society, I would lose my ability to reach out to my family and friends and good god, I wouldn't know what time it was.

My cell phone has become my security blanket and my security blanket has become my curse. It has glued itself to me like a blood sucking leech that won't let go until the battery dies, and with chargers at home, work and in the car I don't see that happening very soon. Until my job required it, I did not own a cell phone, wanted no part of one and was quite sure that I could survive my mundane day to day life without one.

My first cell phone ended that dream. Several years ago my regional VP told me that I would be getting an Iphone so that I could “be available.” He did not tell me that I would become available to everyone and everything and everything would be available to me 24 hours a day! This was not good, an Iphone is not an insomniacs friend. In no time I was calling, emailing, texting, tweeting, facebooking, facetiming, instagraming, Linking in, banking, shopping, skyping, setting my DVR, and playing games with anyone and everyone who also could not do without their security blanket. I even tried to see if there was an app that would let the damn thing make toast! No such luck, but it's a million dollar idea!

The worst part about it is that I actually talk to very few people on my Iphone. With so many different ways to communicate via my phone I never have to talk to anyone. Texting has become the way we talk to each other and that my friends is a very dangerous thing. I have had not one but several Ralph Kramden humina humina moments when I realized that my text had gone to the wrong person. Needless to say, those texts usually require an immediate phone call (or facetime if the other person has an Iphone) expalining why you just wished a plague and festering boils on their family and usually after receiving such a hideous text they don't answer your call, which leads to another text text that goes something like this "hey, that wasn't for you LOL, (insert smiley face with blush here if you choose) pretty funny huh, I don't really want them all to die." I have also had to respond to any number of texts with “that's not what I meant” because when texting there is no inflection for someone to hear and a smiley face or frowny face just doesn't do it.

Last Saturday during what seems like the one hundreth snow storm of the year I received an email from Valvoline letting me know that my car was due for an oil change. Then I received a text telling me my car was due for an oil change. Then I received a tweet from @valvoline telling me my car was due for an oil change, and like one of Pavlov's obedient dogs I went directly to Valvoline to get my oil changed. I was the first customer to arrive but moments later several other customers walked in and each one was looking at, talking to or texting from their cell phone. Not one of us made said hello, smiled at or even made eye contact with each other. I'm not saying that I needed to introduce myself and ask them all over for dinner, but I was astounded that there could be actually no interaction between any of us. For gods sake it was snowing like crazy so you would think someone would have said “hey how about that snow.”

We were all probably busy trying to explain the text we just sent to the wrong person. Call me.