It’s funny isn’t it? The physically smaller and lighter they make cell phones the heavier those little bits of plastic feel on our minds.
Yesterday afternoon when the kids came home we decided to make a trip out to Waffle House for dinner. (Yeah, Waffle House. Shut up.) At any rate, when I asked Lady Beth which one she wanted to visit seeing as how they are literally on every Interstate exit and in several locations in major town down here, (you poor yankees…), she said “The one out near Mom’s house.” I said, “Why not call your Mom and see if she would like to meet us there?” “No phone”, she replied. Turned out Clancy had left hers at home as well. Everything got kinda quiet in the van for a sec as the fact we were out of touch sank in.
Then the most wonderful feeling of Happiness and Freedom ran through everyone in the van. Even the kids, though they knew not why. We were out as a Family, no one else knew where we were and no one could get in touch with us if they tried. We were free spirits. Felt good. Damned good. Dinner was great, conversation better, kids tried some new stuff, we laughed, drank too much tea, and had a fantastic time.
And not a single phone was heard to ring.
I’m gonna pick on my sister-in-law here, but I can just hear what Erin would have said had she tried to call us on that sunny Sunday evening… “I tried to call you but you were not at home and refused to answer your cells. What if something important had happened?” My reply would be: “It would have had to wait until we got home.”
Patience. Something we are sorely lacking in this Country today. We’ve become far too used to instant gratification, instant contact with any info or any person we desire. What is wrong with being alone? Not so very long ago there were no such things as cordless phones, much less cell phones. Methinks we will start deliberately leaving the damned things at home – often!
We’ve even come to expect instant victory on the battlefield, though how that happened I’ll never understand. We want our victories bloodless too! (?) Yes, Vietnam went on far too long, and WWTwice lasted for over four years. We somehow expect Iraq to be Democratized in two years? Get real! It took, what, eight years for us to come up with a working Constitution. Today we worry that it took less than two to get Iraq to that point. And while the death of any American serviceperson is a tragedy, Two thousand is an awefully low number compared to losses in other wars. I can’t help but to wonder how some of these protesters would have felt had they stood looking down on the carnage of Gettysburg on the third morning, or had they been at Pearl Harbor, Omaha Beach, or Iwo Jima.
We’ve come to expect too much from our world. We’ve come to expect too much from others. Yet, we’ve come to expect too little from ourselves – and that is the real tragedy in the big picture show of Life.
Omar the Bull, out.
… & perhaps out without a phone!
