cellphones

I understand that most adults need a cellphone. Honestly, I'd be lost without my cellphone most of the time. I use it for everything. And text messages are especially awesome. I even use it to keep track of time instead of having a watch. But sometimes I think people are a little too obsessed with cellphones.

First of all, cellphones allow people to engage in very antisocial behavior. Instead of interacting with the people that I'm with, I find myself sending texts at the bar and whatnot. And I know people are even worse than me with this.

But I can deal with people using cellphones in these situations. That's fine. Pretty much everyone does it now. It's like it's become a part of socializing.

What really annoys me though is seeing little kids with cellphones. Today I was taking the train from my apartment to my parent's house. I figured I'd get a little reading done on the train.

Wrong. About 5 minutes into the trip, a group of 5 girls aged somewhere between 10 and 12 and their parents get on the train. They're being loud and obnoxious. Man, if kids could only see how annoying they are they might not be so bad. Trust me when I say I didn't want to hear what these girls had to say but unfortunately I was forced to since they decided to sit down in the seats right across the aisle from me. Wonderful.

Anyway, in between these girls' conversations about some penguin video game and chewing gum in school, one of the girls says something to the effect: "Oh. I'm going to send a text to somebody. Who should I send it to?"

And so I'm thinking: why the hell does this girl need to send a text message to anyone? Seriously. It's like the president of the United States asking what country we should bomb. Just because you have the tools to do it doesn't mean you need to do it. But cellphones aren't useful tools for these kids, they're fucking toys.

Which makes me think even more: why the hell does this girl have a cellphone? She's like 10 years old. She really doesn't need it. Parents rationalize it in their own minds. Idiots.

At some point during the trip, another girl picks up her cellphone and calls somebody. The call apparently went to voicemail and went something like this: "Hey Alex, I'm calling you because I'm bored and decided to call somebody and guess what? You're the lucky winner because you're the first person in my address book! You should feel special. Well, ok bye!"

At this point I wanted to turn to the girls and say: "Will you guys turn your cellphones off and shut the fuck up!?" and then turn to their parents and ask: "Why the fuck did you morons give these girls cellphones? And you sit here and listen to their conversation and don't do shit about it? Fucking Christ!"

If I ever buy my kids a cellphone before they hit high school, somebody please beat the living shit out of me.