Taking A Stand: Cellphones are oh so annoying
While being one of the most convenient inventions ever, the cellphone is also one of the most annoying gadgets ever devised.
Nowadays, everyone has a cellphone, from elementary school kids to your great-great-grandma. It’s a challenge, in any public environment, not to see someone working the phone like an operator on the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon. It’s gotten so bad that call waiting is now a standard option on the average cellphone. If cellphones do cause brain cancer, then a lot of people are going to die because many people seem to have them permanently attached to their ears.
Of course, another person’s cellphone usage is none of my business, so long as they can keep it between the lines when they’re going down the road, and don’t run head-on into my car while they’re discussing whether to do Chinese or Mexican for supper. Unfortunately, some folks don’t know how to drive when they are completely focused on the road, so having them work the phone and drive simultaneously is too much to ask.
However, where it does become my business is when their annoying rings disturb me in a situation where common courtesy would have a person turn their phone off or at least turn it on vibrate. Some folks just seem not to be able to exist without their cellphones for an hour or two, whether it be in the theater, restaurant, church or court.
Come on people, you aren’t that important. Do you mean to tell me the world would end if you couldn’t be reached during the length of a two-hour movie? Are you in charge of pushing the button should a nuclear war break out? Cut the cord for crying out loud. You’ve got caller ID on those things, return the call later. How in the world did people exist before cellphones?
Granted, the ringing of a phone is bad enough, since it tends to distract from what’s going on, but what makes it worse is the fact cellphones don’t even use normal rings anymore. Instead, the average cellphone nowadays breaks into a montage of melodic favorites, burping out William Tell’s Overture at ear-shattering volume. It seems some folks have to have their ringers on full volume despite the fact the phone is attached somewhere to their body.
Hey, cellphone companies, would it be too much to ask just to put a basic ring on the phone? Mine has every tune known to man; however, it has no ring. I keep my ringer set pretty low because my ringer sounds ridiculous. I looked and looked, and couldn’t find just a simple, run-of-the-mill ring which wouldn’t make me feel embarrassed to answer my phone.
Sure, I know some folks select their ring to reflect their personality; however, to everyone else, the ring sounds like glorified elevator music. It may be a conversation piece the first time it rings, but after the initial ring, it just becomes annoying. If phone-makers would make phones that ring normally, it wouldn’t be near as annoying. Just because Joe Blow is getting a phone call, doesn’t mean the rest of us should have to put up with a mini-concert of Broadway show tunes.
I think the state legislature should make a law that if a cellphone rings in a public environment, that any person disturbed by the ringing should be allowed to snatch the offending phone away and fling it as far as it will go.
Can you hear me now? Good.
(Duane Sherrill is a reporter for the Standard. He can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at [email protected].)