The Village Idiot: Cell phones do everything
Decisions, decisions. Do I want my next cell phone to be the one that can take pictures and automatically send them to my friends and family, or do I want the cell phone that is also a satellite TV and walkie-talkie? Do I want the cell phone that let’s me play no-limit Texas Hold ‘Em poker, or the one that can tell me where I am within 3 feet of any spot on Earth? What’s the point of living if you don’t know exactly where you are, within 3 feet, all the time? Why even leave the house?
Why isn’t there a cell phone out there that can tell me my exact altitude whenever I want it and the dew point? It would text message me automatically with things like “Come in out of the rain!” Now, that would be handy.
The cell phone I have now is practically worthless. A total and complete piece of junk. The only thing it can do is phone people. It won’t let me check my stock prices, it can’t send or receive faxes, I can’t play Pac Man on it while waiting at the checkout line of the grocery store, it won’t e-mail me the latest newspaper headlines, it isn’t even a walkie-talkie. I may as well be living in the Stone Age. It’s one step above using a hollowed out log to send drum messages to people.
The only thing it can do is let me phone people. So I call my friends to tell them how bored I am because there are no games to play on my cell phone. And that I don’t know my exact latitude, longitude or altitude. Sure, I know that I’m in a movie theater and I’m in the balcony, but that’s so vague. Oh, shhhh yourself. Can’t you see I’m talking, here?
Stupid me, I signed a two-year contract for this piece of junk. I’m stuck with this big, clunky thing for another five months. It’s gigantic, it’s practically the size of my palm. People laugh at me when I pull it out. “Why don’t you just carry around a megaphone? They’re smaller and more up to date.”
The contract for my last car was shorter than the one I signed for this cell phone. They always say never sign something unless you’ve read it. Sure. Right. Three pages of lawyer voodoo in small print just to buy a $200 cell phone? Yeah, I’m going to read that as soon as I finish up Dante’s “The Divine Comedy” in the original 14th century Italian. You’ve got to be kidding. I’ll sign it and take my chances. How bad can it be? Would cell phone companies still be in business if they wrote millions of one-sided, consumer unfriendly contracts?
Then I see the ads on TV for newer cell phones that can iron shirts, vacuum carpets and deworm the dog while they let you send instant messages to all your friends and run the bathwater for you. There are never any roaming charges and you get 50,000 free minutes a month. On top of that, they’ll throw in a free phone for every member of the family — all of this for substantially less than I am paying now for a cell phone that is just a cell phone — from the same company! Stupid two-year contract. That’s what loyalty gets you nowadays, the worst possible deal.
In one cell phone commercial I see two carloads of fun-loving beautiful people sending text messages to each other while they’re going down the highway at 60 mph. That’s gotta be safe. In my car, with my gameless cell phone, we’re lucky to be playing car bingo. I wonder if that’s one of the games that will be on my new phone?
(Jim Mullen is the author of “It Takes a Village Idiot: Complicating the Simple Life” and “Baby’s First Tattoo.” You can reach him at [email protected])