The other evening, before I fell asleep, I was watching the beginning of a Seinfeld episode. Elaine, Jerry, and George were all standing on the side of the road together. Elaine then pulls out her cell phone and proceeds to call a friend to see how she was feelings. During the phone conversation, Elaine was experienceing very bad reception and eventually had to hang up because the static was so bad. George and Jerry then gave Elaine a very hard time about how horrible it was to call a friend on a cell phone. In fact Jerry even calls it a cell phone walk-and-talk. The Seinfeld dictionary says that it is
Cell Phone Walk and Talk - when a person calls to convey their concern (for a friend's sick relative), but callously calls from a cellular phone on the street out of convenience
George even calls Elaine's cell phone usage a faux paus. They inform her that it was very inconsiderate and her friend was most likely insulted because Elaine did not take the time to call from her home phone to show that she cares and that using your cell phone shows that you don't want to take time out of your busy schedule for a friend.
It's amazing how times have changed in just a short while. Andrew and I don't even have a home phone, much like many of my friends and in-laws. On one hand, it saves you money but in the process you miss chatting with random people when they call your home wanting to speak to someone else. I very rarely talk to my father or mother in-law because they don't call my cell phone. My fnl might call me if he knows that Andrew is asleep, but on the rare occurence that that happens, we don't chat and make niceties with each other.
My bff Steph (I like how that rhymes) and I have almost opposite schedules. I can usually talk during the day, while at night by the time Steph gets off work I am exhausted and I might be working on homework, which seems to be the case more often than not. If we didn't have cell phones, I dont' know what we would do. We tend to call each other at least eight times a day, but we might only talk once or we might talk all eight time, but only about a minute at a time. We have to use cell phones and call when we are in the car because that might be the only time that we have. Stephanie out of pocket from about 3:00-6:15 when the A Block is over on the news. Sometimes she doesn't get off work until 8 or so and that's when they kick her out of the station. Cell phones are a necessaity. Stephanie also has to keep up with 2 cell phones, one if which is like her baby. She almost does need a baby monitor for her cell phone, just in case. What did we do without them? Cell phones, not baby montiors.
Calling someone on your cell phone does show that you care, in fact I believe that it's more personal because not everyone has your cell phone number. You can look up someone's home number, but they might not want you to call them. In this day and age, you can even put a picture of someone when they call and assign them their own personal ringtone. My sister's ringtone sings,"Your sister is calling you, to see what you're up to." It doesn't annoy me too much, because typically we just text each other. There's a lady who works in my office and when her husband calls her (which is quite a bit) I hear,"Pookie, pick up your phone!" Someone else's ring tone is an obnoxious child laughing. Jerry said that he will never bow to the phone. Today we are not only bowing, but we are getting out of the cell phone's way.
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