Dial "A" for Asshole

Every day, it takes me an hour to drive 25 miles to my job in Hillsboro. It's not a bad commute most of the time, but with a lot of tech companies planted firmly in the tech corridor, I have to contend with bumper-to-bumper traffic with far too many BMWs and SUVs.

However, that's not the issue. Perhaps it's because I've never embraced a cellphone like my compatriots or maybe it's because I realize that ADD really means "adult driving disorder" because one human cannot possibly drive, shift, eat, text, and talk in this traffic...

It's not enough that technology has invaded every corner of my life. From the time I get up to the time I go to bed, there is not one gadget or software application that has its tentacles wrapped firmly around my life.

Compared to my friends, I have a basic cellphone. I rarely, if ever, send pictures. I do send an occasional text message, but, frankly, Rhett - I don't give a damn. The cellphone could be gone with the wind, and I could care less.

Why?

This plastic piece of technology that retails for over $100 (made in another country for under $5) could save my life or make it richer.

I could be stranded in Montana and dial a hot highway officer that looks like Gerard Butler, or I could help some young couple deliver their firstborn in a conversation with a paramedic via 911.

Definitely not - but what a dream, nope.

I hate the cellphone because it seems that people are throwing their manners out the door whenever that ringtone shakes and shimmies into that person's respective eardrum.

I was at Fred Meyer, which is a combination grocery store, Target, garden center, and hardware store. I was returning shower curtain hooks (yes, my life is so exciting) when the woman was giving a play-by-play to her friend on the phone about how long the line was, which customer was doing what and the average breakdown of time it took the service representative to resolve the issue. She groaned on and on about how this store is so inefficient, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I wanted to turn around and ask Howard Cosell what did she expect? It was 5:30 p.m., and everyone is getting out of work to go grocery shopping before they head home. Secondly, each person was doing their job as fast (and as pleasantly) as they could. Prior to me taking my place at the counter, the gal told her friend she was next and hung up. I guess that was the end of their conversation.

I've seen jerks crawl out of $85K BMWs with their Blackberries glued to their ear, pushing people out of the way to get to the shopping cart. Was it a high-stakes deal between a Portland office and an office in Shanghai? A patient in cardiac arrest? Nope, it was the Mrs. calling the Mr. to tell him to pick up dinner.

At restaurants and malls, people open up that clamshell to, I'm sure, hear pearls of wisdom as they dine on their prime rib or try on their Lucky jeans.

It seems we've attached so much self-importance and importance to a device. No one really cares. Have we become so insecure we feel the need to broadcast everything in public, including intimate conversations, to make us feel or sound important? More importantly, do we honestly think people are listening to all of our conversations?

Well, in my research, just some of them. ;^)