The Evils of Cell Phones

I teach, not high school but computer classes for a franchised training company. In the front of all our classrooms, right next to the whiteboard, is a sign that reads "Please set phones and beepers to silent. If you have to take a call, please do so in the hallway." The sign is difficult to miss, and all one would have to do is look forward from their seated position to see it. Why, then, do I have to put with people who will leave their cell phone on, not on silent, and proceed to take calls in the middle of class as if I nor the other dozen or so people in the room exist? Usually I just stop in the middle of whatever I'm saying, stand there with my hands clasped behind me, and stare at them. Unfortunately for me and class, most of the people who do this to me are too stupid to realize I'm looking at them and to figure out why I'm staring at them. On one occasion there was a lady who even had the nerve to ask, after she hung up, why I had stopped teaching and to just "pretend I'm not here." What? They never found her body after that day...no, I'm just kidding. Maybe.

A few days ago (though it seems like it happens every day) I was almost run over by a lady who couldn't have been more than five feet tall, driving a four-wheeled land barge (that's a really big SUV for the dim-whitted out there) while talking on her phone. Her expression when I laid on my horn for her to get back into her lane? Nothing. That's right, she didn't even acknowledge my existence and apparently didn't even realize she was halfway in my lane. And for the record, she was to my right, using her left hand to hold the phone, and wasn't wearing a wedding ring. This leads me to assume she's not married and since she looked to be around my age (mid-20's) probably didn't have any children. So why did she need a fifteen foot long tug-mobile? That, my friends, is for another day.

This topic of the moment wouldn't be complete without mention of the absolute dumbest and annoying of all cell phone users: the movie theater cell-a-holic. The lights dim, the screen lights up, and one of the first things you see on the screen is a trailer advertising the concession stand, the no-smoking policy, and the "Please turn off your mobile phones and pagers" sign. Give it ten more seconds and the moron two rows back casually answers the phone that's been ringing in his pocket for the last half-hour, and talks, loudly. "Hey, dawg. Yeah, we at the movies. THE MOVIES! No, I hadn't talked to her since last night. She hella fine, though." And the conversation continues with total disregard for the fact that everyone else in the theater paid just as much as him for their ticket. And what can we do about Mr. Moron? Nothing apparently, since I saw a few days ago a news report on how some woman sued another woman for telling her to be quiet while she was talking on her phone during a movie. What the hell?

My point is, if you have the common sense to know how to dial a phone number, I'd think you'd have the brain cells to know when, or when not, to dial it. For anyone who reads this who has been that idiot in my class, the wood elf driving the SUV, or the jerk in the theater, do us all a favor and HANG UP THE FRIGGIN' PHONE! I will guarantee you, guarantee, that whomever you're talking to can and will be able to talk to you later. And if you don't hang up in these or other annoying situations, may your phone explode in your hands and a meteorite fall on your head. Stupid.