A friend recently called me, upset because she got a $350 ticket for talking on her cell phone while driving. “It was important,” she wailed. But it seemed no amount of explaining would convince Officer DoRight that the need to move her massage appointment from 2:00 to 4:00 constituted an emergency.
Cell phones have changed the way we communicate with family, friends, co-workers, and even spouses. 20-something newlyweds text each other while in the same room. Couples have proposed or divorced via text messages.
But of all the changes we see cell phones making in our culture (including the apocalyptic demise of grammar and spelling), one of the most significant is that we’ve somehow come to expect 24-hour availability from anyone on our speed dial list.
In the old days (yeah, anything before 2005), people would leave messages on answering machines and wait patiently for a return call that evening, or even the next day. We understood that people had lives and were not attached to their phones like portable oxygen masks. But we’ve gradually come to expect that if you have a cell phone, you’re expected to answer every call and return every text message right freaking now.
So today, I’m offering up my list of 14 Reasons (no matter how crazy I am about you or that we’ve been friends since 1963) I Might Not Pick Up When You Call.
1. I’m in the shower. It’s hard to hear under a waterfall, and my phone insurance doesn’t cover water damage (or stupidity, like, say, taking your cell phone into the shower).
2. I’m in a restaurant. People who have normal-volume conversations with someone across the table will pick up their cell phone and start shouting loudly enough to be heard in Botswana. Yes, the caller can hear you, but so can everyone else for 6 blocks in any direction.
3. I’m at work, and my crazy boss assumes my phone conversations will be about, well…business. (But if those fabulous boots we saw last weekend are now on sale, text me.)
4. I’m driving. If you don’t have $350 worth of news, leave a message and I’ll call you at the next truck stop.
5. I’m having a massage. Yep, as in naked, lying on a warm table, incense burning and a CD of crashing waves, all working together with a massage designed to bring the feng back to my shui, totally obliterated by your multiple redials, simply to remind me to pick up some creamer for your coffee.
6. I’m having sex. In the movies, they always stop and pick up. Seriously?? My phone has sailed out the window, been tossed down the hall, and one time, thrown under my car. (Don’t ask.) Even during bad sex (Bahahahaha! I crack myself up), in which case we’re going back into the bedroom until we get it right. I’ll get back to you tomorrow.
7. I’m on the potty. I’ve never been one to pee and chat simultaneously. And if it’s a long conversation, does one flush while talking (which can be heard by the person on the other end, forever outing you as a toilet talker), or do you come back and flush after you both hang up? Social etiquette sites don’t address this one, so I’ll call you back when I’m done, okay?
8. I’m going through airport security. These people are cranky monkeys (particularly after being yelled at by pissed-off travelers all day long), and when they say “Ma’am, put that phone down now,” unless you have an unfulfilled fantasy about being strip-searched while the contents of your luggage get tossed around like a fruit salad, you should just Put. The. Phone. Down.
9. I’m writing. Even Hubs knows to stay clear unless the house is on fire and it’s reached the hallway, but otherwise wait until I come out, all bleary-eyed and brain dead from four hours of editing my latest draft post. Too often, a great thought is working it’s way into a post, but irretrievably vaporizes after a 10-minute phone chat about where to meet for lunch.
10. I’m getting a tattoo. No, I’ve never had one, but I can see the unfortunate result of leaning over to grab your phone while Mr. Nasty Needle is filling in the exotic bloom on your left breast, which now looks less like a Bird of Paradise and more like a really long party favor.
11. I’m at the gym. It’s obvious that the guy on the treadmill next to mine, who has been arguing with his wife (apparently named “You Bitch,” because he’s been calling her that for the last 45 minutes), seems to believe that we’re all either deaf and can’t hear them as they loudly resolve which one of them had an affair first, or that we can hear and are fascinated by their dramatic, reality-TV life.
12. I’m getting a pap smear or a mammogram. In the first, all I can do is peer over the sheet to see a couple of people seriously focused on my lady parts, and in the second, I’m pretty much out of the game because my breast is securely sandwiched between two metal plates, both positions effectively preventing any movement on my part, up to and including reaching for my phone.
13. I’m watching a movie. I prefer movies to TV shows because I don’t like interruptions (After the 7th senior incontinence commercial, I lose the plot and the mood). I tend to turn my phone off for movies, even though it’s the 17th viewing of The Notebook.
14. I’m at a wedding or a funeral. Looking coy and slightly embarrassed when your phone goes off during someone’s wedding vows is only slightly less rude than actually answering it and getting up to leave the service, with an audible whisper, “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to take this.” If you’re that busy and important, skip the service and send a card.
So unless you’re a family member with unresolved anger issues and feeling the need to vent (again) for an undetermined length of time, a stalker ex-boyfriend who still believes we’re destined to be together, or an English-as-a-ninth-language sales guy with a condo in Rio you’re selling for half price because, dammit, I deserve it (in which case, I’ll get back to you, yeah, never), I promise to return your call as soon as I’m not doing any of the above activities.
In the meantime, as they say, “Your call is very important to me. Please leave a message, and I’ll get back to you as quickly as I can.”
What a comprehensive list! I’ve had nearly all of these experiences. Hell, maybe ALL!
Me too…and I’ve answered the phone while on the toilet, then hit the mute button so I could flush!! Ha ha.
Hello,,, you sound a little hollow, where are you?
In the bathroom.
Are you shaving?
Uuuunh-uh!
No.. Just because I don’t feel like talking anymore today. (yea Vikki that’s possible)
This is the PERFECT list and I think it should be adopted by EVERYONE!
Hi – I hate when someone is on the phone next to me at the gym, talking louding. I think cell phones should be banned from the gym floor! And restaurants. And beauty salons. And markets!
Right on. We are glued to our phones, aren’t we? It’s become addictive and dangerous. Thanks for the funny spin on it.
I’m not really big on talking on the phone so a lot of calls go unanswered and I wait for the voice mail. I will admit to talking on the toilet, but it’s usually my husband. I will answer for him and of course, my kids. Other than that, wait for the beep, folks then say what you need to say!
Sandy that’s GROSS
(also, yeah, even here!)
How about: “I just don’t want to talk to anyone right now.” My cell phone is my tool, not my taskmaster.
#2 makes me CUH-RAZY! I am guilty of #13. So much so my I have made a decision to move my charger into another room AWAY from the side table in the living room so as to avoid doing IMDb searches for obscure actors I just KNOW I have seen before. Makes my hubby/kids nuts!
Vikki,*ROBUST APPLAUSE* this is BRILLIANT!!! We just had this conversation with our daughter and I will be sharing your fab piece directly!
So true & so funny – all of these! I won’t answer my phone while doing any of the above either – and find it funny in an annoying sort of way how when the caller calls a 2nd or 3rd time and I finally answer (because I’m no longer busy doing one of the above things) that the now agitated caller starts the conversation off by saying, “I’ve been calling & calling you! Didn’t you hear your phone??!!” Hell yes, I heard it! Ugh! :D
what a crack up but so true. Great list! Thanks for reminding us all Vicki!
It’s easier to ignore the phone these days when you know who is calling. Remember when the phone would ring because you were expecting a call and couldn’t risk missing that person? Then you’d miss the important call while you were talking to the other person. I know how important I am in someone’s world when they are constantly checking their text messages or answering the phone.
Yes! This exactly. No matter how much I love the convenience of carrying a cell phone, it does not entitle anyone to an immediate response from me. Leave me a message or better yet send a text. I will get back to you – when I’m ready to.
I’ll have to bear this in mind. I’ll stock up on some of these retorts for next time I get bollocked for never EVER answering my phone. Not even to family, or to anyone.
Phone’s for MY convenience.
Seems to be a theme of phonecall-related posts today. Good to know I’m in with the cool kids for once, even if yours is waaaaaaaay more fun.
I wonder how we even survived before the invention of the cell phone. (I wrote something along this very line on my own blog today). Your list was hilarious. The reason I keep coming back to read your blog.
Ha! All excellent reasons to not answer.
I would just add..I didn’t answer because I really didn’t feel like talking to you…
My son tells me I’m on the phone more than anyone else he knows. At 21, with all of his fellow college students, that’s a wakeup call for me to divorce my phone.
With aging parents I wake up and carry the phone with me wherever I go. But, alas, that’s not the only reason. We both know where else we bring the phone and there’s no excuse for it.
I guess I’m longing for the days when you went out and unless you had a nickel, then a dime, then a quarter, you couldn’t reach anyone!
Great list!
People seem amazed when I don’t pick up after a certain time of night and I tell them I turn my phone off! What in the world do you mean, off? Yes there is a button you can turn it off and then back on!! Wow! I have completely baffled people with this explanation!!
I think your list pretty much covers everything I ever do! I never take my phone into the gym – it’s my time. And I’d fall of off the elliptical if I tried to answer a call while it was moving.
JU SO FONII!! Here from the Grand Social and BB’s 110% there with ya! Exception of course is when WE’RE trying to reach our kids. Answering our calls is the least they can do since we let them live through ::shudder:: PUBERTY! ; ) BB2U
One more reason – I didn’t hear the ring. Unlike my children, my phone isn’t surgically attached to my body.
Oh, dear Lord, the guy in the gym. Can I please throat punch him? And the people who find it necessary to check in from every where…including a funeral GAH!!!
I used to be one of those people who looked at people who are attached to their phones as if they were *those people*, and then I started blogging, and I just can’t miss anything anymore. In fact, it took everything I had not to get on and read this post when it came through my email…on my phone…and I saw it…because it’s always in my hand or in my pocket. Sigh – I don’t answer during sex though.
Great list and very thorough and thoughtful! I will always pick up for my sister and my husband because it may be really truly important that I respond or can be reached, with in reason that is!
Some calls just aren’t worth pausing the DVR for.
One more I’d add to the excellent list: I didn’t pick up your call because I’m already on the phone with my mom or my kids or my husband and I’m not going to dump them so I can pick up your call.
You nailed it! But why didn’t you pick up my call? Ha ha aha And what about Rule 15 – I see on my display and I don’t want to talk to you right now. Or, I really want to talk with you and know that now is not a good time.
I was on a conference call when someone flushed and I know everyone was wondering who it was. Just don’t do it! I don’t pick up when it’s a face time. I hate that. Unless I have to be somewhere, I don’t always look presentable. If I wanted to see someone face to face, I’d be presentable.
I suspect we can all identify with these reasons – plus the sentiment behind them.
Loved this! As always, LOVE you!
Love the list! I’m addicted to my phone for games, FB, Twitter,etc – but I actually don’t like talking on the phone!
So funny– especially about the movies and sex one. They really do that, don’t they? I have to admit though… I will totally pee and chat on the phone. With pretty much anyone ;)
Hi there! I’m a new member of Honest Voices and just discovered your blog. Can’t wait to read more! Thank you for this. I so wish people with cell phones would stop holding public conversations in my zen places … where I work out … where I go for a cup of hot chocolate … or lunch. These people that hold court in public places, because they don’t have or like their offices are society’s albatross. They conduct business where people go to get away from business, and we need some kind of movement to get them to be a little more self aware and a little less self obsessed. Loved your list!