If a Tree Falls in the Forest and Nobody Texts You...

Last night, I was out to dinner with some friends and the woman sitting across from me was furiously checking her blackberry. At one point she even muttered at it. I’ve never had a Blackberry. I left the business world before PDA’s were ubiquitous. I began my workday (in the late 1990s) with a certain feeling of dread as I entered my office to see the red voicemail light on my phone pulsing away at me in a demanding tone. These days I work at a much slower place, but I’ve begun to question my relevance in the modern world. It’s easy to criticize the people who have to be “plugged in” continuously. Sometimes I wonder if the guy browsing the chew-toys in Petsmart really needs to be doing a deal on his Bluetooth phone. The Bluetooth phones, by the way, that fit into your ear, have really taken some getting used to. I yearn for the days when you could just write off people talking to themselves as lunatics. I remember a guy I saw in downtown Washington, DC wearing a tinfoil hat with paperclip chains that hung from it, ran the length of his body, and dragged along the ground, to get the best reception I guess. I hope he was an appointed, and not an elected official.

So I ask myself, do these people really need to be available all the time? Some do. The technology revolution has brought the hammer down on some teenagers. Little did they realize that when they begged their parents for a cell phone that they were, in effect, attaching a ball and chain to themselves. These days you have to get really creative to explain why you didn’t call Mom and Dad to tell them you’d be late – how do you disguise the sound of beer pong in the background anyway?

Nevertheless, I think the answer is that some people do have to be available all the time. I remember hanging out with a friend who had to carry a beeper. I think there were people on the bomb squad less on edge. After a while, when that thing would go off, I’d even start to jump. But I’ve never had a job that required immediate action. When I was a lawyer, I administered estates. Once someone is dead, time urgency lessens a bit. So now, I feel sort of irrelevant at times. A few weeks ago while waiting for a friend in a bar, I noticed the people on either side of me checking and writing text messages. I didn’t have any messages and wasn’t expecting any. I pulled my phone out anyway. I checked it. No messages. I scrolled through the address book – no surprises there. I deleted some old texts; that allowed me to pretend like I had something going on. I thought, yeah, doing a little housekeeping over here. I’ve found grinning slightly gives people the impression you’re looking at something you haven’t seen before.

It’s almost the end of the day. No texts and no voicemails today. Come to think of it, no voicemails on my work phone either. Jeez, never thought I’d miss that annoying little red light on my phone. (I could always make some paper clip chains, just in case.) Maybe someday, like my friend who is an executive at a company here in Atlanta, I’ll be able to look down at some snazzy hand-held device and mutter “sonovabitch” – that would make me feel important, I think.