Another one being transferred from my Facebook Notes. Originally typed...September 15, 2009.
So, here's the deal...tonight I hit my breaking point on a couple of topics!!! I'm placing my soapbox on the floor and stepping up onto it!! I'm gonna rant and there's nothing that you can do about it!! These are my opinions and I'm sorry if they offend anyone!! Actually no...I'm not sorry cuz these are my opinions and I'm entitled to them just like all of you are entitled to your opinions and I'm gonna respect then if you comment on this...
Here goes! I'm probably the only one in my age group that feels this way. Call it an old fashioned way of thinking or a Vermont hippie point of view but this is how I feel. I HATE cell phones!!! The damn things have become a staple in today's society. Every where I look there's someone with a God Damn cell phone either attached to their ear or in their hands with their fingers typing rapidly over the keys. These damn contraptions have made life "easier" and more "convenient" cuz they make people more accessible and people can now have the internet with them wherever they go. Maps, directions, shopping, email, calling someone and checking in on your kids has been made pocket size. It also makes for a really rude world. Now, I'm willing to acknowledge that I got involved in the cell phone craze as well so I can understand how addicting they become. I've been there. I loved texting, checking my email anywhere (the break room at work, the grocery store, etc) taking pictures became an addiction of mine. I loved my cell phone back in 2004-2007. Then I stopped. Canceled my plan cuz I found myself caught up in this awful world where the modern conveniences I left my home to get away from was following me around in the pocket of my blue jeans and I gasped at what I had become. Somewhat ashamed that I had gotten caught up in this horrible trend. I had become a conformist. I had lost all perspective on life. I saw myself turning into someone I hated in more ways than I really want to admit. When I took a walk I brought my phone. When I went canoeing and kayaking I brought my phone. When I went out to the grocery store I brought my phone. It was awful!! I always swore I would never become one of them. A (gulp) conformist. A tend follower. I even found myself arguing reasons as to why I "needed" my cell phone with me at all times. What if I get lost? What if I need help? What if I need to call home to find out what my roomies want for dinner? These are among probably hundred's of thousands of reasons I found to keep my cell phone. Then in late 2007 I got rid of the damn thing. I took a hammer to it and just blasted the thing into tiny little plastic pieces. I looked like someone who had completely lost her mind. A mad woman!! A nut!! A crazy person who had just escaped from the nut house!! Now, I'm happier! No cell phone! And a know what the world didn't stop!! I have gone back to old school ways of communicating!! I have a land line!! I have an answering machine! I check my messages when I get home! I use pay phones and yes people these things still exist!! I have a calling card for long distance calls! I leave a list of names and numbers on my fridge and bulletin board with next to my work schedule and class schedule so all people have to do is remove themselves from the couch or chair and walk over to the fridge and look at the schedule to see where I am on what day and then look at the list of numbers to find what number to call! Seems difficult right? You're saying right now that my way is a lot of work. Well ok maybe it is but it gets my family and friends exercise and forces them to use their brains. I absolutely refuse to allow my son to take the easy way out. So what if it's a little more work. So what if it's the old fashioned way!! I think it's healthier and I like to think of it as a little puzzle. You find the day of the week on the calendar (check) then you look at my schedule and find the time and location of where I am then you look at list number 3 and there's the number to call me in case of an emergency of in case of any questions you need answered! Viola!! You've succeeded!! You win!!! You just burned some calories and you have won the game!! You found me!! Treat yourself to a piece of candy cuz you've earned it!! Pat yourself on the back and reward yourself for now taking the easy way out and using your cell phone!! Whoo hoo!!!!!
Rant number 2 is a continuation of rant number 1!! Dating, hanging out with friends, shopping, classes, and various other things regarding the rudeness of cell phones!!! I've started paying attention to certain areas where cell phones show up. Everywhere!!!! I was hanging out with a friend a few weeks ago and my snotty side flared. I didn't mean for it to happen but it rally started to push my buttons. This was the start of my breaking point on this topic. This friend is a really nice, sweet, highly intelligent, good looking, friendly, hardworking man who only has a few habits that actually annoy me. His texting being the biggest one now that I really think about it. But it's not just him it's lots of things. My tolerance level is low on this topic because I am so old fashioned on it and I can see both sides. Like I said I've been that addicted cell phone person. Ok, getting a little off topic. With this friend we were starting to watch a movie and he was getting text after text after God Damn text. While we were hanging out and not once did he think it was rude. It's become the "norm" to be rude and impolite. To me hanging out with friends is a social event even if it's only one friend where your focus is with that person or within that group of friends. You have either as 2 people agreeing to hang out or as a group of chums hanging out to be within that group. You have made an unspoken pact to just have fun without a ton of other commotion interrupting. Meaning no outside influences. No cell phones, computers, no being rude to one another. Your choice to hang out as friends in any size group means that you're committed to that activity whether it be watching a movie in someones living room or at an actual movie theater or playing video games, going dancing, or any other social activity where friends hang together. But I've noticed that cell phones are the norm at social gatherings. That it's cool to text, chat, surf the net, listen to music when out at a social gathering. I hate this!!! It's the same thing with dating. I went out on a date a few months ago and the guy's cell phone kept going off. He was polite enough not to answer it. But he kept checking it, turning off that obnoxious beep that alerted him that he had a new text/voice mail. He lost major points with me and I left. It's just plain rude, impolite and inconsiderate to have that happen in the middle of a date. I'm sick and tired of going out on dates and hanging out with friends and sometimes even family and having to put up with this rude but socially acceptable modern day behavior where I'm part of a very slim minority. People look at me like I have 2 heads and belong in the nut house when I express my point of view and 'un-cool' off the wall opinions. I get looks like I've gone coo coo. Well, I don't care!! When I go out with someone and you have a cell phone going off constantly and you have to text back or call back immediately then you're gonna lose major points!!! That in any civilized society would be considered absolutely out of the question and completely rude behavior!! Where have all our manners gone?? And I fear the worst is yet to come!! Are manners ever going to make a comeback?? Or is this it?? Has the world finally lost all sense of whats right and whats rude??
And my last point of the night...my last crazy rant is this: I fear whats going to happen with future generation. Whats worse to me is that we're teaching our children that it's ok to do this on a date or at a social gathering. We're teaching our children that it's ok to hold up a grocery check out line because a text or call came in and we get so engrossed that we stop paying attention. We're teaching this future generation that it's ok to be rude in some ways but remember your manners in other situations. Using excuses that we feed our own brains (reasoning with our choices) and telling other people when confronted with this topic that if we don't have these conveniences we'll fall behind. When did this happen. When I leave my home I'm doing this to get away from "modern conveniences" I want to spend time with my son uninterrupted by the phone. I'm taking a walk to get away from the jumbles and messes of cyberspace. I'm going grocery shopping to pick up groceries not chat with friends. I'm walking out my door to head out into the open world to go to work or to school. Places that both consist of some type of learning atmosphere.
I want Cameron to be able to function without modern conveniences before he uses them when he hits an age where he can make that choice for himself. I want him to be prepared for the future but not in a way that's going to compromise his ability to be a polite, well mannered young man. I want my son to know that the world wasn't always like this.
My hope is that the past repeats itself and some day being with friends, dating and just plain being a part of the world itself will remember that it's ok to slow down and fall behind a bit. It's ok to stop and smell the roses. It's ok if people talk uninterrupted between just the friends sitting on a futon watching as movie or out with a group. That ya might get more than one date with a highly intelligent, pretty, optimistic, small town Vermont girl is ya just leave that cell phone at home and people (or a certain friend) would not have snotty comments and snippy remarks made if that damn cell phone was just set aside and better yet turned off. Texting isn't everything. Friends if they are true friends can understand this (apparently highly unusual concept) There are other ways of functioning in life. People survived for generations without cell phones, internet and other modern ways of living. I realize that this blog/note is off the wall and an off the charts coo coo ramble and rant to most who will read it and I am aware that I'm pretty much alone in these opinions. I'm 27 and part of a completely co-dependent generation. I'll be the first to admit that I'd probably be lost without internet. But if it was for some reason taken away then I also know I wouldn't die!! I'd move on with life and go back to the other ways of old school living. But I'm gonna take this one ramble/addiction at a time.
I'm sufficiently done for the moment. I'm now stepping off my soap box and moving on with life.
Thanks to those who actually read this and please feel free to leave your opinions, rants or bold blunt feelings. :-D
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