Here in Austria, cell phones are called ‚Handys’. To me, they are the equivalent of bubonic plague. When they first came out, they were quite small in comparison to the big clunky things we would see in Hollywood films, and they got even smaller to the point of ridiculousness. Especially for people with poor small motor coordination like myself. Nowadays, the damned things are omnipresent. When I moved into my current apartment, there wasn’t a normal telephone connection. My new landlady thought I was insane for asking. ‘Nowadays everyone has a Handy.’ Right. Then broke the dawn. ‘Oh, you need it for the internet, right?’ She seemed relieved when I affirmed that. And told me I could pay to have a new line laid in myself. Heart of brass, she has…
A friend of mine recently revealed that when he visited me some ten years ago, he thought Graz had an awful lot of crazies out on the streets talking to themselves, till he realized they were making telephone calls. It’s only gotten worse, btw……. A lot of them have a cordless thing stuck in their ear with a microphone in it, and I assume there is a tiny packet to fuel it in a pocket somewhere, so it got even weirder. You can’t escape them any more. People and their banal conversations. And they download the most unnerving ring tones you can imagine. Make you clench inside. And then?
‘Hi, I’m on the Hauptplatz. Where are you?’
Every damned conversation begins the same way, am not exaggerating. Whereupon follows the most superficial drivel you never wanted to hear. Or instructions on how to turn on the washing machine. Very loudly, because the person on the other end is deaf, seemingly. Matters of life and death, in other words. You get bombarded in trains, on streetcars, coffee houses, on the street, and regarding the latter, do you think the caller would step into a quiet doorway and speak quietly? No. They barge along talking louder than they normally would, because the cheap ones have lousy connections sometimes, and inflict their stuff on everyone else within a ten meter radius. And once in a while you get to hear a true-story relationship drama in progress which makes you flinch. Makes you positively thrilled to get home where things are quiet, to be sure.
It brings a new dimension to the term 'shamelessness'.
I see a lot of people who have gotten to the addiction point. If that damned thing hasn’t rung in five minutes they are worried. Severely worried. ‘Am I no longer important?’ You see it in their faces. That is what those little gadgets have become to them. And they keep pulling them out of their pockets and checking for new messages. Like every five minutes. I love the far-sighted ones who forget their glasses. They streeetttch their hand down as far as possible, and peer at the idjit thing. craning their neck high as possible to try to read the screen. That cracks me up. Really.
In the year 2000 there was a wonderful article in a Vienna paper by a philosopher, and I can’t find it, not being able to access their archives. But it was basically a damnation of ‘Handys’ as the most immoral invention of the last century. Forcing other people to listen to your conversations whether you want to or not. Overlooking that having one puts you at the beck and call of your employers day and night and making you a new sort of serf. Or to anyone else, for that matter, if they have your number…. And deluding people into thinking they are ‘important’, the more calls they get. I know of a debt collector, who told me once that over sixty per cent of his business were debts incurred by people who couldn’t pay their Handy bills. Because those things are hugely expensive. It’s a scam, and they pay highly to be ‘important’.
Now, seven years later, I don’t think even he saw how this would grow. Handys can get used to negate you. Where I work, I am in customer service. I am obligated to give those people important information. So they come in. And just when I have to do my little song and dance---(no tapping, that is for Mr. Craig)—their cell phone goes off. They always answer it. Do you think they would just say, ‘Am just checking in, can I call you back in five minutes?’ Wrong. And presto-change-o, I do not exist. And the conversation goes on. And on. And whaddaya know? I’m just air! Inwisible, Preciousess. And more often than not, there is someone ‘normal’ behind them waiting for me, tapping their feet. With impatience. (Narrow stance.) Negation. ‘I’m SO important…’ I haven’t kept a statistic on this, but in maybe one in twenty of those calls, it was obvious that it was important. The rest was the game of jerking each other off. Shameless.
Rude, impolite, a ‘gotcha’ sort of game.
Am ashamed to say I had to buy one this year, holding out for all I was worth. But when Peter landed in hospital, the unit had no phones to call out on, because….. ‘Eeeeveryone has a Haaaandy…’
I got one that you can load up with a chit. You buy one at the tobacconist, and call a number and type in the code on it, and you have that much telephone money to use. Practical. Only: That kind is considered dangerous, so you have to present a photo ID to the people you buy it from, and they keep that as a record. I was more than amazed. Was told that people have misused this type of phone, so it was for ‘security reasons’. (oooooooh, am so skeered…) For the life of me, I can’t imagine how that might be, but am dull. Seemingly…. He used it while there, with the admonition not to call any of our politicians and curse them out. Fat chance.
Whatever happened to calling someone at home and saying, ‘Hey, let’s meet for corfee and chat?’
So he got out of hospital, and I have the Handy.... Shee-it. I googled for negative things about them this morning, and one link above says that if a child uses one for twenty minutes, it's learning ability is impaired for a few hours. Microwaves. The rest is a category of horrors. It can cause sterility if you carry it in your pants pocket. It can cause 'benign' tumours in your brain, especially if you have it to your ear while it is dialling. True, this reminds me of James Thurber's grandmother who thought electric sockets sent out waves that could hurt her, but maybe she wasn't so crazy.
My cell phone almost never rings. One time it did and ruined my ATM bank card, can attest to that.... Took me two weeks to get a replacement, and had to go to the bank for everything. It was the pits. I accessed the voice box only once. To hear my boss yelling at me. It was an accident, I never wanted an answering machine. So when it rings, it is mostly Peter.... 'are you almost here yet?'
NOTHING is perfect, believe me.
0 Responses to "Cell phones, tja....."
Post a Comment