OK. I get it. I have heard all the rationales. I have even offered them several times to my parents, who have had a similar rant: it's a generational thing, it's the new public code of manners, it's not considered rude, it's....
Here goes, I'm officially an old fogey: What the **)&(&^ is with cell phones? Last night we went to dinner with the kids to the Japanese Hibachi place. As we were waiting in the lobby, a foursome of college-aged students were waiting next to us. The young women, one of whom was flirting dangerously with anorexia and her friend, who was not, were glued to the screen of an iphone. Ani's boyfriend and his friend (who was told, no doubt, that Ani's friend had a great personality) sat beside the girls, silently staring into space. M and I thought that was such a commentary on today's world.
Then we were seated.
And the Ani foursome were seated next to us. Downside of eating at the Hibachi: being in proximity to other people. Ew.
Anyway, we sat down and looked around the giant room. At least one person at every table was staring at a cell phone screen. Most, to be fair, were not speaking on the phone. Just, presumably, counting the dollars they've wasted on Top 40 ring tones, or playing games, or looking at their long list of contacts and thinking about all the other people they'd CLEARLY rather be with at that moment.
Don't they get it? Don't they understand that they are saying to their girlfriends/families/friends/colleagues that they would rather be anywhere else, doing something else, with anyone else when they sit and stare at their phones? It's as though they were begging the phones to ring, to take them away from the delicious pyrotechnics of the Japanese Steakhouse. I explained all these sentiments to E as we were waiting for our food. Being a kid, he still thinks my lessons on manners mean something. I just hope that when he's 16, I don't sit at the hibachi lounge watching him text his friends about how uncool it is.
Ani and her entourage sat next to us at our table. Ani and her friend were talking, boyfriend and his fraternity brother were looking at the iphone. They were either playing a video game or looking at video of an Ultimate Fighting-type match. In the middle of the restaurant Frat Brother actually woo-hoos very loudly at seeing the avatar/actual human bleed on the screen of his iphone.
Of course, I am sitting next to Woo-hoo. Woo-hoo also, it seems, has a sinus problem, as he was constantly snorting and sputtering his phlegm six inches from my ear. Ew. Then, when my food came (I ordered sushi to try to save some calories off the buttery shrimp, steak, veggies and rice) Woo-hoo and his friends offered their insightful, thoughtful, and worldly comments to each other about my food. (I, being of a generation not permanently attached to an ipod, can still hear. Thank you.) And how "ew! She actually ate it" and "I can see it...it's really raw." and "I forgit, what's that green stuff called?" I have never wanted to jab a chopstick into someone else before. It's a powerful impulse. In the end, Ani didn't eat anything. Her friend ate EVERYTHING. Boyfriend had a lot to drink and looked randy (yes, it's the 1950s). Woo-hoo talked about how much he hated his veggies and then used his iphone to calculate tip. (Figures. Woo-hoo probably can't divide)
And in the end, I felt bad for my children. And I realized that the evil of a cellphone really is in the hands of the user. The technology is not in itself rude, it's the users. And I realized one other thing: that if the Ani/Woo-Hoo foursome ever became sexual, it'd really be more of a twosome. The two girls average out to the weight of one normal girl, as do the IQs of the two dudes. So, maybe they can divide after all.
No comments:
Post a Comment