Thanks to Alexander Graham Bell for inventing the telephone ... and the cell phone jerk
“Mr. Watson — come here — I want to see you.”
Those were the words spoken by Alexander Graham Bell in the world’s first telephone call on March 10, 1876 - 132 years ago today - that got the planet’s telecommunications ball rolling.
For most of the years since that fateful day, the telephone was a device you could usually find attached to a wall in your house or on your desk.
But in the last decade-and-a-half or so, the telephone has gone through some serious changes. And as a result, so has the world.
Nowadays just about everybody and his dog has a phone they carry in their pocket or attached to their ear. Not only can you make phone calls with these micro-sized gadgets, you can send emails, pictures and music around the world in the blink of an eye.
I’m sure dear old Alexander Graham Bell had no idea how far his invention would come. And without a doubt old Alex certainly couldn’t have conceived of the whole new kind of rudeness some of the users of his invention would unleash on the world.
For example, how many times have you stood in a supermarket line somewhere, waiting to pay for a newspaper or a loaf of bread, when a cell phone hidden deep inside the suitcase-sized purse on the shoulder of the person in front of you starts to blare a super-loud synthesized version of the latest rap sensation? Remember when phones used to have a bell in them that rang? Boy, those were the days.
But where was I?
Oh yeah. The cell phone … raps. It must rap for about five minutes, and the people who built the phone must have set the volume on high then broken off the button and the woman must have some serious hearing loss, cause she doesn’t make the slightest move to answer the mechanical noisemaker, much to the chagrin of everyone in the quickly-growing line.
Then, just as the cashier presents her with a total for her purchases - you can’t help but hear the total is $49.79 cause the cashier had to yell to be heard over the still blaring phone – the woman reaches way down into the depths of her bag, pulls out a cell phone about the size of a book of matches and turns her back on the busy young lady.
“Hello? Oh hi, Delores. You wouldn’t believe who I saw together at the coffee shop last night after bingo…”
The cashier rolls her eyes and the customer gabs on and on and the people in the line start to tap their feet but the woman in front of you is oblivious, and not for the first time in her life either, you’re quite sure.
Then after what feels like 20 minutes, she turns, pays, leaves, jumps into a truck the size of a bulldozer with her phone still glued to her ear and almost causes an accident as she tears her way over the curb and out of the parking lot. That woman is what is known as a cell phone jerk.
(The story above is fiction, but just barely. The woman in the story is a composite of many cell phone jerks it’s been my misfortune to cross paths with in recent years.)
Cell phones are everywhere these days and for whatever reason, the more people use them, the more common courtesy seems to go out the window.
So, thanks Alexander Graham Bell for your amazing invention and thanks for making the world so much more annoying by helping to create the cell phone jerk. If you get to have the credit for inventing the telephone, I don’t see why you can’t share in the blame for creating cell phone jerks too.
Happy Anniversary.
Those were the words spoken by Alexander Graham Bell in the world’s first telephone call on March 10, 1876 - 132 years ago today - that got the planet’s telecommunications ball rolling.
For most of the years since that fateful day, the telephone was a device you could usually find attached to a wall in your house or on your desk.
But in the last decade-and-a-half or so, the telephone has gone through some serious changes. And as a result, so has the world.
Nowadays just about everybody and his dog has a phone they carry in their pocket or attached to their ear. Not only can you make phone calls with these micro-sized gadgets, you can send emails, pictures and music around the world in the blink of an eye.
I’m sure dear old Alexander Graham Bell had no idea how far his invention would come. And without a doubt old Alex certainly couldn’t have conceived of the whole new kind of rudeness some of the users of his invention would unleash on the world.
For example, how many times have you stood in a supermarket line somewhere, waiting to pay for a newspaper or a loaf of bread, when a cell phone hidden deep inside the suitcase-sized purse on the shoulder of the person in front of you starts to blare a super-loud synthesized version of the latest rap sensation? Remember when phones used to have a bell in them that rang? Boy, those were the days.
But where was I?
Oh yeah. The cell phone … raps. It must rap for about five minutes, and the people who built the phone must have set the volume on high then broken off the button and the woman must have some serious hearing loss, cause she doesn’t make the slightest move to answer the mechanical noisemaker, much to the chagrin of everyone in the quickly-growing line.
Then, just as the cashier presents her with a total for her purchases - you can’t help but hear the total is $49.79 cause the cashier had to yell to be heard over the still blaring phone – the woman reaches way down into the depths of her bag, pulls out a cell phone about the size of a book of matches and turns her back on the busy young lady.
“Hello? Oh hi, Delores. You wouldn’t believe who I saw together at the coffee shop last night after bingo…”
The cashier rolls her eyes and the customer gabs on and on and the people in the line start to tap their feet but the woman in front of you is oblivious, and not for the first time in her life either, you’re quite sure.
Then after what feels like 20 minutes, she turns, pays, leaves, jumps into a truck the size of a bulldozer with her phone still glued to her ear and almost causes an accident as she tears her way over the curb and out of the parking lot. That woman is what is known as a cell phone jerk.
(The story above is fiction, but just barely. The woman in the story is a composite of many cell phone jerks it’s been my misfortune to cross paths with in recent years.)
Cell phones are everywhere these days and for whatever reason, the more people use them, the more common courtesy seems to go out the window.
So, thanks Alexander Graham Bell for your amazing invention and thanks for making the world so much more annoying by helping to create the cell phone jerk. If you get to have the credit for inventing the telephone, I don’t see why you can’t share in the blame for creating cell phone jerks too.
Happy Anniversary.
posted by Street Wise Guy | 5:58 AM
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