Etch-a-text

Picture it, I'm out for dinner with a friend late last week and she gets a call on her cellular phone. No problem. Particulars are being sorted out, the simplest and only need-to-know details are being dealt with over a quick conversation, cause well, we are out to dinner. Then...she says 'just hold on a sec' and proceeds to move the phone out from her ear much like someone might be looking at the little screen to see who is interrupting via call-waiting and she shakes her phone. That's right kids, shakes it like an etch-a-sketch. She has to do this to get it's juices flowing again. What's sad is both the friend on the other line and myself have been witness to this before, and well, it was just a normalcy. 'Why get a new phone?' she says to me. It got me pondering. That's right, why do we have to be slaves to technology that is most often merely a luxury. It's sad how long it takes me to simply come up with plan B when I would normally just watch t.v. as plan A but don't really want stare at HGTV that day. I would love to read my books, work on scrap books, even enjoy the massive park across from my house. But no, I default to the 'idiot box' as my Mum calls it. The % of elementary aged school children with cell phones now would probably blow my mind, I rarely see a headrest in cars without a mini dvd-player dangling from it for the backseat toddlers on board, and what's with this new illness tagged as 'blackberry-thumb'. Who are we kidding? Day 2 of Sex and the City being released, I am in the theatre and Homegirl 1 row in front a few seats to my left is texting through the entire damn blasted movie. I could have rung her neck. Are we seriously that attached to our technological devices? I should have shaked her like an etch-a-sketch is what I should have done. The acronymed list is long of gadgets and electronic paraphernalia such as iPod, PVR, A/C, Xbox that I fear has us trapped and reliant on them so much, that we may have lost focus on what should really make us happiest, not to mention without having to purchase an extended warranty to go along with them. That's it...now can someone text me...I'm bored.

Toodles