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Enough, Already!
by Peary Perry |
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There
comes a time in every man’s life where he just wants to stand up on
top of a tall building or rock and just shout out loud “Enough already.”
I mean look at our lives. Thirty years ago, the most you had to worry
about was your home phone, your office phone, maybe a fax number and
a pager number. That was about the extent of your so-called ‘social
contact’ inventory. Now we have e-mail, web mail, G-mail, You-Tube,
I-Phone, I-Pods, Face book, My space, Your space, cell phones, Instant
messaging as well as our office and home phones. Who has time for
all of this? Our lives have morphed into this cosmic level of consciousness
that dictates our every moment of every day. Personal eye contact
is at an all time low. Try going to lunch with someone who has a Blackberry…no
way to have a meaningful conversation since the whole time you’re
talking, they’re nodding like some many bobble heads while reading
what just arrived on their ether connection.
And the things they are reading are really earth shattering. Important
stuff such as what baseball manager just got canned or what movie
star was just released from jail in the last hour or so. Here you
are talking to some person (male or female) and they are off in the
information never-never land plugging useless pieces of garbage into
their already overloaded brains. You might as well be talking to the
chair or the waiter. In fact the waiter would probably be a better
shot since they can’t usually afford a Blackberry. If the other person
doesn’t have a Blackberry, then all you have to contend with is their
cell phones ringing with the latest emergency of the hour. “Can you
bring home some milk?” or “What program was I supposed to Tivo?” Important
things that can’t wait thirty minutes.
Folks used to complain to me about porn on the television. I’ve told
them there is a great tool on their set that will defeat all porn
and stop it from coming into their homes. They always look at me with
great amazement and say…”Wow, where is it?”
I tell them it’s called the on-off button.
Same thing with obscene callers. Not so much of a problems these days
with caller id, but years ago ladies in my office would complain about
some jerk calling late at night and rattling off a long series of
obscene suggestions. Here again my highly defined sense of sensitivity
kicks in and I always would ask one simple question.
“Why didn’t you just hang up?”
So much for compassion….someone once told me I had a spiritual gift….when
I asked what they thought mine was…they replied that it was the gift
of cruelty.
Anyway, back to the point, if you are honestly trying to have a meaningful
conversation with someone about something really important such as
the end of the world as we know it or what is their plans once the
nuclear missiles arrive and they are obviously ignoring you in favor
of the Calgary Flames latest hockey score, then you need to either
leave or start talking on your cell phone as well. Since I don’t have
a Blackberry nor do I want one, I find that just punching the keys
on my cell phone works just as well and is somewhat distracting to
the person I am with at the time. Of course if you are going to follow
my example, I must warn you to be careful. The other day I was using
this technique and called some rug dealer in Kabul. We were fine until
I found out he didn’t take American Express.
One of the other things I have yet to figure out is how people can
keep up with four or five e-mail addresses along with 2,000 of their
closest friends. I don’t have 2,000 friends and what’s more I don’t
want 2,000 friends. I have enough friends. I have a hard enough time
keeping up with the ones I have now. What with birthdays, anniversaries,
weddings, babies and funerals, I am pressed to the max. When you were
young, all you had to worry about was getting invited to some classmate’s
birthday party where Jojo the clown was going to show up. Then you
went through a phase where everyone graduated and you got those invitations.
Then everyone got married and you went to those...then came housewarming
parties…then those who stayed married had kids and you got those announcements.
In some cases you got invitation to friends who were getting a divorce.
When you get to be as old as I am, you get it all…Birth announcements
and obituaries, sometimes on the same day. |
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