Hey, You! Yes, You With the Cell Phone. I Hate You.

By now you're tired of cell phone rants. You've read about it everywhere - in the papers and in online rants. You've heard about the new laws banning cell phone use by drivers, and you've all witnessed some monumental cell phone gaffe like the sound of Outkast's "Hey Ya" beeping from someone's Motorola in the middle of a funeral. There's even a book out now dedicated solely to the subject of The Jerk with the Cell Phone. It's been covered. If you don't want to read another rant about cell phones, then move right along. Nothing to see here.

First let me give a full disclaimer. I own a cell phone. It currently resides in the side pocket of my totebag. It is four years old, the battery is dead and the antenna, which had been taped on with hundred-mile-an-hour tape, is off on its own little adventure somewhere. I'm just not a phone person. At home, I can go for days without making or receiving a call. I don't get a lot of calls because anyone who would be calling me knows that I almost never answer the phone. I go for weeks sometimes without even checking my messages. The only day I answer the phone is Sunday. On Sundays, Mom calls. It's always Mom on Sunday, and she knows I'm here, and if I don't answer she just keeps calling and leaving messages that make me feel like a total slackass. She says things like, "It's 2 in the afternoon, but you must still be in bed. Call me if you ever wake up." Later, "It's 6 p.m. I guess you've gone back to sleep." (The last said in an exasperated tone.) Later still, "Lisa, it's 10 p.m. your time. Are you there? I'm getting worried."

She's not worried. She knows exactly where I am. I'm on the couch in the living room reading the paper and watching the Simpsons and I only have one phone (which is not cordless) and it's in the bedroom and I'm not about to haul my ass across the apartment to get there by the fourth ring so she can tell me about my nephew's latest school band performance, the stupid thing my Dad did, and what she served at her last bridge luncheon. If anyone dies in my family, it better be on a Sunday, otherwise I might not make it home in time for the funeral.

So, yeah. I'm not a phone person.

This is why I find it incomprehensible and unfathomable that so many people now find it virtually impossible to live their lives without being in constant contact with whoever it is they feel they must be in constant contact. When I see people shopping in the grocery store, cell phone to ear, I want to drop to my knees and scream to the heavens, "WHY???" Grocery shopping was never a consultative process before. You made a list, you shopped. None of this calling of the spouse from Aisle 7 to assist in the monumental Mrs. Butterworth's versus Aunt Jemimah decision. WHAT THE FUCK? PICK ONE OR BUY BOTH. IT DOES NOT REQUIRE A PHONE CALL.

But apparently it does.

At Big Bookstore, people do not seem to be consulting the person at the other end of the line so much as talking recreationally. Big Bookstore, apparently, is conducive to catching up with friends and just generally shooting the shit. I have a theory about this. I think that some people feel that shopping for books indicates something negative about their desirability as social beings. After all - reading is a solitary pursuit. So if you're at the bookstore stocking up on the latest chick lit or the entire Tom Clancy oeuvre, you might (if you are a socially insecure moron) feel that others are looking at you and wondering why you have so darn much time on your hands. It's kind of like the single-woman-in-grocery-checkout-line-with-catfood-and-lean-cuisine syndrome, where you can just sense the pitying looks gazing down on your pathetic basket of single girl goods.

If do find yourself in Big Bookstore, shopping alone, on a weekend night and you are that insecure moron mentioned above, then you really need to show the world that you are not the Big Loser that you appear to be. What better way than talking loudly on your cell to let the world know: "Hey! I am not a Big Loser! I have friends. Friends with whom I am speaking RIGHT NOW!"

There are other variations on this theme. Some people (mostly men) talk business, very loudly, while their infant spawn run amok in the Kid's Section. They are saying to the world: "My wife may have stuck me with the kids tonight, but I AM IMPORTANT, DAMMIT. I am not some girly-man caregiver! I have work that cannot wait until tomorrow!"

So these people walk around the store, talking and gesticulating and not using their inside voices. When they come to the cash registers, they do not even pause in their important conversations to acknowledge my existence. I am reduced to a human vending machine. The entire transaction takes place without the customer ever making eye contact or exchanging a word with me.

I watch the customers depart, juggling their belongings, purchases and cell phones, the flow of this vital conversation never ceasing, and I think: "You don't fool me. I know you are really talking to your Mom - who is telling you about your nephew's latest school band performance, the stupid thing your Dad did, and what she served at her last bridge luncheon."