Technology has made us seventy percent more 'tarded.
Case in point: the other morning* as I was leaving Hippie Girlfriend's new apartment in yet another neighborhood where you have to walk outside using your car keys as faux adamantium claws, I realized that I left my cellular telephone on her nightstand**.
No problem, I can just call her later and inform her. Only...I have no idea what her phone number is. I have no idea what anyone's phone number is. The only phone number I know off the top of my head is my Joyce, my babysitter, and she's been in heaven for five years, and I haven't needed babysitting for three.
The Contacts feature has ruined me for phone numbers. I used to be able to recite phone numbers as if they were the alphabet, but my brain capacity can only hold whichever speed dial I assign them, and I'm pretty sure Hippie Girlfriend's number isn't really four.
Fine, Plan B. I'll e-mail her. Only...she just moved. She has no internets yet.
Holy crap, Plan C. I'll just wait until she's almost done with work, whatever that work may be, and wait outside her place. Only...I've been to the place once, and I only accidentally found my way the first time, because my new GPS seems to think getting within a three-block radius is good enough before it starts speaking Spanish or some shit.
She is officially off the grid. There is no reaching her. She could leave me that afternoon if she so chose, which is exactly the way I think she likes it. I'm gonna' have to track her by tasting dirt and surveying the broken twigs and leaves (And that's only if I were tracking her in a jungle setting)
But, before I could begin tracking her -- I had to survive the rest of my day. Forget all the important, life-altering phone calls I was inevitably receiving that afternoon, how was I going see my friends and family again?
Honestly, how the hell did people meet for dinner or drinks or golf in 1987? What did they do when they got there, and they didn't immediately see the person they wanted to see? How would they be able to find out if they were ten minutes away, or just sitting in the back corner behind the server's station? Did they just enter the meeting place and start screaming the name of their desired company? HOW DID THEY LIVE!?
In the brief instances I made contact with the outside world, being unreachable cancelled plans of both business and leisure. Setting up a specific time proved be too much, as we live in a society of "ish," as in "Let's get together about six-ish. Somewhere downtown-like. I'll twitter you the address, oh, and btw, funny status on Facebook."
I felt like that over-privileged dick in Into the Wild, only I was exiled to the stone ages, as opposed to being an ungrateful fuckwad that gets whats coming to him in the end.***
I needed to track down my phone. I'll admit it outright, I don't own the phone, the phone owns me. I had to find out what my girlfriend's phone number was.
I went with the Kevin Bacon approach, by calling a friend of hers, or the boss of her friend, or the friend of a friend that may have the phone number stored on their SIM card.
It was at this point I realized that when my cell phone rings, unless that name's already in my memory -- I screen. Why should anyone else be any different? (I don't do it cause I have some sense of importance, I just like the surprise of the voicemail. If the mystery number doesn't leave a voicemail, I will call the number and demand to know why.)
All was lost. I was never going to speak to my loved ones ever again. I would lose all jobs and opportunities, as one missed call throws me onto their "Dickhead Who's Too Good to Answer or Call Back" list. For all I knew, Hippie Girlfriend's scheme went exactly as planned, and she was well on her way to some Compost/Pot Farm, free of her underachieving shackles.
I had yet to try Plan Z. Calling my own phone. As I lay there dying, with my final gasp, I plug the only other number I have memorized into a borrowed mobile device, praying that somewhere, somehow, somebody was hearing the Sanford and Son theme, and realizing they have to answer that call, and not dance.
That's when I heard the sweet sound of Hippie-Girlfriend's voice: "Hello?"
"Oh, thank God! You answered the phone! ::slight pause:: Why the hell are you answering my phone?!?"
EPILOUGE
I did miss several calls that day, the only one of importance being my agency calling me to inform me the audition I woke up early and went to anyway was cancelld.
While I did have missed calls and texts into the double digits, most of them came from Justin, and most of them were of this variety:
"Did you see Tropic Thunder?"
"Don't you like me anymore?"
"This isn't Corey Anderson, call me back!"
"What did I do you?"
"Don't you like me anymore? God!"
"Let's talk, that's what best friends do!"
Had this been a Tennesse Wiliams play, I would've gotten home to find Justin, adorned in a torn wife-beater, screaming out my name in the rain.
*MOM APPROVED VERSION: the other day, just before dusk
** MOM APPROVED VERSION: on her chastity shrine
*** Why do you think the high school's put that book on the curriculum now?
Case in point: the other morning* as I was leaving Hippie Girlfriend's new apartment in yet another neighborhood where you have to walk outside using your car keys as faux adamantium claws, I realized that I left my cellular telephone on her nightstand**.
No problem, I can just call her later and inform her. Only...I have no idea what her phone number is. I have no idea what anyone's phone number is. The only phone number I know off the top of my head is my Joyce, my babysitter, and she's been in heaven for five years, and I haven't needed babysitting for three.
The Contacts feature has ruined me for phone numbers. I used to be able to recite phone numbers as if they were the alphabet, but my brain capacity can only hold whichever speed dial I assign them, and I'm pretty sure Hippie Girlfriend's number isn't really four.
Fine, Plan B. I'll e-mail her. Only...she just moved. She has no internets yet.
Holy crap, Plan C. I'll just wait until she's almost done with work, whatever that work may be, and wait outside her place. Only...I've been to the place once, and I only accidentally found my way the first time, because my new GPS seems to think getting within a three-block radius is good enough before it starts speaking Spanish or some shit.
She is officially off the grid. There is no reaching her. She could leave me that afternoon if she so chose, which is exactly the way I think she likes it. I'm gonna' have to track her by tasting dirt and surveying the broken twigs and leaves (And that's only if I were tracking her in a jungle setting)
But, before I could begin tracking her -- I had to survive the rest of my day. Forget all the important, life-altering phone calls I was inevitably receiving that afternoon, how was I going see my friends and family again?
Honestly, how the hell did people meet for dinner or drinks or golf in 1987? What did they do when they got there, and they didn't immediately see the person they wanted to see? How would they be able to find out if they were ten minutes away, or just sitting in the back corner behind the server's station? Did they just enter the meeting place and start screaming the name of their desired company? HOW DID THEY LIVE!?
In the brief instances I made contact with the outside world, being unreachable cancelled plans of both business and leisure. Setting up a specific time proved be too much, as we live in a society of "ish," as in "Let's get together about six-ish. Somewhere downtown-like. I'll twitter you the address, oh, and btw, funny status on Facebook."
I felt like that over-privileged dick in Into the Wild, only I was exiled to the stone ages, as opposed to being an ungrateful fuckwad that gets whats coming to him in the end.***
I needed to track down my phone. I'll admit it outright, I don't own the phone, the phone owns me. I had to find out what my girlfriend's phone number was.
I went with the Kevin Bacon approach, by calling a friend of hers, or the boss of her friend, or the friend of a friend that may have the phone number stored on their SIM card.
It was at this point I realized that when my cell phone rings, unless that name's already in my memory -- I screen. Why should anyone else be any different? (I don't do it cause I have some sense of importance, I just like the surprise of the voicemail. If the mystery number doesn't leave a voicemail, I will call the number and demand to know why.)
All was lost. I was never going to speak to my loved ones ever again. I would lose all jobs and opportunities, as one missed call throws me onto their "Dickhead Who's Too Good to Answer or Call Back" list. For all I knew, Hippie Girlfriend's scheme went exactly as planned, and she was well on her way to some Compost/Pot Farm, free of her underachieving shackles.
I had yet to try Plan Z. Calling my own phone. As I lay there dying, with my final gasp, I plug the only other number I have memorized into a borrowed mobile device, praying that somewhere, somehow, somebody was hearing the Sanford and Son theme, and realizing they have to answer that call, and not dance.
That's when I heard the sweet sound of Hippie-Girlfriend's voice: "Hello?"
"Oh, thank God! You answered the phone! ::slight pause:: Why the hell are you answering my phone?!?"
EPILOUGE
I did miss several calls that day, the only one of importance being my agency calling me to inform me the audition I woke up early and went to anyway was cancelld.
While I did have missed calls and texts into the double digits, most of them came from Justin, and most of them were of this variety:
"Did you see Tropic Thunder?"
"Don't you like me anymore?"
"This isn't Corey Anderson, call me back!"
"What did I do you?"
"Don't you like me anymore? God!"
"Let's talk, that's what best friends do!"
Had this been a Tennesse Wiliams play, I would've gotten home to find Justin, adorned in a torn wife-beater, screaming out my name in the rain.
*MOM APPROVED VERSION: the other day, just before dusk
** MOM APPROVED VERSION: on her chastity shrine
*** Why do you think the high school's put that book on the curriculum now?
2 comments:
but... but... but... i like into the wild...
Oh, come on dude...
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