Remember When

Okay, I want to start this off by saying I'm not that old. Stop laughing, those of you who know me - I'm not. I haven't even hit the big 40 yet. Technically, I barely a member of Gen X, so I can't be that old. But this is something I got to thinking about last night and then started wondering where this dependency came from - on cell phones.

Recently movie theaters in Dallas got together because they had the grand (I think) idea of blocking cell phone signals in the movie theater. YEAH!!!!! I thought. No more yelling like some psychotic bitch in the movie theater at the a-hole that thinks I paid $7.50 to hear him talk. But people were so up in arms about it, that I don't know if it will ever happen. And you should have seen the people on television protesting. I guarantee not a single one of them would be receiving a phone call that started with "we have an emergency at Mercy General and need the best brain surgeon in Texas" or "that's a 42 car pile up on I-20 and we need all emergency medical personel to attend." Nothing like that. I know it's nothing like that because I've heard the conversations. They usually go something like this:

"Hello" - "No, I'm at the movies." - "We're seeing ______." - "Yeah, it's all right. (so and so) looks hot." etc...............

One lady even made the argument that her husband had a heart attack in the theater and if she hadn't had her cell phone to call 911, he would have died. Uh, yeah, because there are no land lines in the theater and even if there were, theater employees would never call 911 for a heart attack victim??????? Then some said "I need to know if my babysitter needs to get ahold of me." Blah, blah, blah, the list goes on and on.

But I remember a time when there were no cell phones. When babysitters were expected to babysit and you checked in with them if you were paranoid that you hadn't hired the right person. I remember when an emergency was just that - not "girl, there's a sale on t-shirts at Foley's, what color do you want? Then there's the people who have their six, seven, eight year-olds with cell phones. Have you lost your damn mind. Their arguement - when they needs to be picked up they can call that way they are not unattended. Excuse me - what about we try "parenting" again and we make sure small children are never required to use a cell phone to make sure adults do their job.

I remember a time without answering machines too. You know, when if someone wanted to talk to you, they had to keep calling until you were home.

Life seemed a lot simplier and less frantic before we all decided we were too important to be unreachable.