By Rawlins Gilliland, KERA 90.1 commentator
Dallas, TX – My health is being threatened by an aggressively dividing and rapidly reproducing cell: your mobile phones!
In one week, I've listened to a dinner party guest take a ten-minute call from his decorator somewhere between the sushi and souffle. At yoga class, warming up, one man interviewed a potential bartender. Getting my hair cut, the woman in the adjoining stall reviewed her daughter's upcoming wedding in a conference call with the planner, florist and caterer, this after her phone rang to the medieval tune, "Greensleeves." And at Whole Foods, a man called his partner, Bruce, and discussed for five minutes at the meat counter, what Bruce might want for dinner.
I suggested the lamb chops.
Such is city life after America became mobilized by Motorola. I say what's become immobilized is manners. Anywhere you look, people performing the cellular salsa: heads bobbing up and down like those car dash Madonnas.
Somehow, people seem to feel this ritual makes them look important. My bet's that "important" people have other people do for them privately what these people do publicly.
Anyway, never claiming to be a house model for anger management, I confess I ultimately unleashed a naughty assault, launching a retaliatory strike on one of these stage-struck strangers. This happened at the post office, after a next-in-line person punished us mercilessly with her indifference to public protocol. I suffered in silence for 22 minutes while this woman named Joyce stood inches from me, nodding on her Nokia in non-stop banal banter with "Erica." When Joyce's turn finally came at the postal window, she snapped her phone shut. But when she concluded and began to leave, I snapped open, turning to the long line of people behind me to announce the following:
"Everybody, this is Joyce. She's about to leave, but listen! Normally, Maurice colors Joyce's hair. But see, after Maurice broke up with Kim, who does Joyce's nails, and made a pass at Joyce's sister at the salon opening, she went to Michelangelo over at Chez Salon Sistine, where, according to Joyce, the ceiling above the shampoo bowls looks 'exactly like the Vatican.' Anyway, Joyce feels that her new streaks look cheap and brassy, and wonders if she should beg Maurice to re-do it. I say, 'No! No more Maurice!' What do you think? Let's vote! Call Joyce and tell her! Her mobile number is (214) 699-4121. Now you need to call tonight, because she and Tony are leaving for Austin in the morning. Bye-bye."
I was amazed at the flash-fire fury that blazed from Joyce's Botoxed brows to her collagen-ed lips. You see, in Joyce's mind, she felt that since I was invisible to her, she was inaudible to me. To Joyce, I had violated her space.
Following my rabid run-in with Joyce, when several people applauded, I've felt encouraged, empowered. So now, when I'm exposed randomly to gratuitous gibberish, my response is likely to be less subtle than a Janet Jackson finale.
To those compulsive, chronic multi-taskers who think their manic monologues look modern and glamorous, I'm ready to suggest, "If decaf lattes fail, ask your doctor for Ritalin."
Rawlins Gilliland is a writer from Dallas. If you have opinions or rebuttals to his commentary, please call (214) 740-9338 or contact us through our website at KERA.ORG.