Cell Phone Mentality, Part I

I confess that I'm a geek.  Understand that geeks are a step above nerds in society.  Nerds have no social skills.  Geeks, however, can still fit into comformity without calling too much attention to themselves, and I'm one of those.  What happens to aging Baby Boomer geeks in the world of modern technology?  They become helpless/hopeless blobs of trying to keep up with the creaks in their knees as well as the glitches in their computers.  

I also confess that I was dragged, kicking and screaming, into the world of computers by my once-teenaged daughter. When I arrived, I was hooked, but I scarcely had the skills to carry on in those days.  (Early days of personal computing.)  More than once, I woke Megan up at night to ask her to help me do something I couldn't do on my own on the computer.

That was then; this is now.  Fifteen years later, it is still happening.  On more occasions than I care to admit, I ask Megan to get on Team Viewer software so she can see my computer screen and tweak things. 

When I became an amateur radio operator in 1997, I was aware that the geek factor was alive in my life.  My daughter--still a teenager--found it "annoying" that I had radios and scanners on in the house and car.  I, however, single mother that I was, suddenly found myself surrounded by friends on the radio--people who talked me through being alone on the roadways late at night; people who came over to do things for me that I couldn't do; people who thought I was special at a time when I didn't feel special at all, and Megan was often a beneficiary of that.  And then came cell phones.

Cell phones were around before this but were called "car phones" at the time--and only rich people had them.  Then, quite suddenly, the whole technology boomed.  As cell phone antenna towers (a technology developed by amateur radio, by the way) abounded, more and more people had them.  I bought Megan a $15 Tracfone about the time that she and her first husband were moving to Muncie, and that silly phone became a lifeline for coordinating the move.  She soon went on to bigger and better as her needs and understanding got bigger and better, too.  I inherited that Tracfone...and then still another after that.  In short, I have a cell phone.  I just almost never use it!

The cell phone that I have is turned on when I am taking long trips--like to my daughter's or sister's.  Once in a great while, if the power goes out at home--and my landline phone with it, due to U-Verse, God bless them--I turn it on.  Whatever.  I can't really text on it.  It has no perks for the Internet.  It is a PHONE.  Period.  Still, I am aware that the rest of the public has discovered the convenience of the ability to have instant communications.  I was amused one day when I entered a gate area at an airport preparing to fly to California to visit my daughter.  In the line of seats next to the windows, taken up by other folks awaiting their flights, was a whole line of people talking on cell phones!  Every stinkin' one of them!  They were totally unaware of the people around them.  It is a new age!