What not to say on your cellphone
鈥淢om, you need to get a new toy for the dog. He鈥檚 really bored,鈥� says my son over the cellphone.
鈥淲hy are you calling me about the dog at this exact moment?鈥� I ask, frantically searching through piles of marked-down dresses at Nordstrom Rack. 鈥淕et back to your 10 hours of homework.鈥�
Five minutes later, I hear my daughter鈥檚 voice, 鈥淲hat鈥檚 for dinner?鈥� she asks, as I maneuver my little red Honda out of the parking lot. 鈥淢om, I hate that stuff.鈥� Click.
Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that the quality of cellphone conversations is deteriorating? But before you can say, 鈥淥h, no, not another cellphone story,鈥� I bet you
get three phone calls: No. 1. Will you pick something up? No. 2. Will you tell someone where something is? No. 3. Will you settle an argument between No 1. and No 2?
Last Saturday at Costco, while considering the purchase of a 50-pound bag of broccoli florets, I saw a woman looking at a 20-pound bag of sausage. 鈥淗oney,鈥� she says over her cell, 鈥渨ill you run to the basement freezer and let me know how much sausage we have left?鈥�
I pictured her husband listening to one of those educational CDs. You know the kind I mean. Harvard professors lecturing on black holes and molecular biology. And just as this poor guy is about to grasp the concept of String Theory, he gets the call about the sausage.
Fortunately, my husband, a Greek and Latin scholar, will sometimes pepper a conversation with some exciting new research on the Peloponnesian Wars. But mostly his cellphone calls revolve around one topic: toilet paper ... picking some up.
Then there is the dreaded, 鈥淲here are you?鈥� call.
鈥淚鈥檝e been waiting for you to pick me up at the train station,鈥� says my daughter. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e late. Where are you?鈥�
鈥淲here am I?鈥� I yell. 鈥淚 can see you calling me to see where I am. That鈥檚 where I am!鈥�
I called my cell provider for some help. An operator suggested I check out the company鈥檚 website, 鈥渕ired in the mundane.com.鈥� I didn鈥檛 find anything helpful so I called again and spoke with a customer service representative:
鈥淢a鈥檃m, if your children and husband are that overly dependent on you, maybe it isn鈥檛 a problem with your phones. Maybe it鈥檚 a deeper problem within your family.鈥�
That did it. I decided to start PECCA: People for the Elevation of Cell Conversations Association. Here are a few dos and don鈥檛s.
What not to say on a Cellphone:
1. Where鈥檚 the remote control?
2. Will you bring my laundry upstairs?
3. Can you pick up some freezer bags?
4. Did you feed the dog?
Acceptable cellphone conversations
1. How did you like the latest Philip Roth novel?
2. Wow! Your interpretation of Wallace Stevens鈥檚 鈥淭he Snow Man鈥� really blew me away.
3. Can you brief me on what 鈥渂undle鈥� means, as in 鈥渢he bank sold bundles of mortgages.鈥� I鈥檓 meeting some friends for coffee and I鈥檓 feeling a little insecure.
鈥� Janine Wood is a homemaker and writer in Deerfield, Ill.
