Yesterday, for the first time ever, my cell phone rang in a meeting. I was the embarassed one scrambling to find the phone in my bag. Luckily I realized immediately that it was my phone, located the phone by the second ring, and shut it off. When the meeting ended, I called A and apologized for hanging up on her so rudely.
The funny thing is I had just been planning a blog post--yes, writing in my head during my meeting--about how much I love cell phones. Why do I love cell phones? Let me count the ways.
- I love that I can reach S all the time (he wears one of those goofy phone holsters, and he always keeps his phone on, because chefs are never near landlines and always need to talk to each other about things like picking up some cilantro on the way to work or the dishwasher not showing up).
- I love that I can make phone calls anywhere, because I have a hard time returning calls, but I also have some dead boring spaces of time in my life, and without my cell phone, those two facts would be mutually exclusive, but with my cell phone, I can use them to cancel each other out, by returning and making my phone calls while, say, I sit on the bench at the playground, watching E do the monkey bars over and over again.
- I love that I can use my cell phone to find the person I'm trying to meet. For some reason, this function is particularly useful with Lucy, whom I have found at the beach, on a street corner in Town Between Our Towns, and in the middle of several hundred thousand people at an anti-war rally ("I'm next to the flag." "But I'm next to the flag." "I'm next to the flag by the people shouting 'US out of Irag.'" "I think I'm walking toward you." "I see you!"), among other places.
- I love that when I'm not quite sure about whether to give M some next stage of freedom, I can give her the cell phone and feel secure.
- I love that when S or I go out of town, we can call each other whenever we want, wherever we want, as often as we want, without worrying about calling cards or collect calls or all those other phone mechanisms we used to have to worry about. As a corollary, I love that when I am visiting somewhere, my friends there can easily find me.
And you know, I don't even mind when other people talk loudly on their cellphones, because it makes it that much easier to eavesdrop, which of course I love to do.
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2 comments:
Yeah, I love the "I'm waving at you" moment. Plus, why do I still have a phone card? I can't remember the last time I used it (must be years ago), though I still have it in my wallet.
I had that moment with the last boy (I have to say boy, because the whole thing was so terribly sweet and innocent) I dated before meeting Matt. We talked to each other through a huge bar window, in Allston, on our cell phones, at night. We had been trying to catch up for hours and I was sick of following him. He was on the sidewalk, and he hung up, gesturing to the door. I was in the bar, and I shook my head -- I was not interested in braving the crowd at the door, nor in leaving the bar at the moment and wasting my cover charge, not to mention abandoning my friends. So he visually, exaggeratedly sighed and dialed me back. But he smiled. I happily answered and we continued making plans. Later on he ended up abandoning HIS friends for me.
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