Jay Brd's Nest

This article (from STLtoday.com) cracked me up...enjoy.

 Get that thing out of your ear, willya? By Bob Rybarczyk SPECIAL TO THE POST-DISPATCH 04/22/2008
So the other day I met Colette for lunch at a restaurant. I enjoy restaurants. This is why my stomach feels like a Ziploc bag full of maple syrup. Anyway, as I was dining, I couldn’t help but notice that a woman sitting at the table directly behind Colette was wearing one of those wireless cell-phone earpiece thingies. I wondered if maybe she’d just arrived and hadn’t yet thought to take it off.

Nope. She sat there during her entire lunch, across from her friend, with that thing in her ear. The stupid earpiece blinked a bright blue light at me every fifteen seconds or so. I realize this shouldn’t have annoyed me, but it did. It was like trying to read in a quiet room and hearing someone go “psst” every fifteen seconds. After a half hour of blinking blue lights flashing at me over Colette’s shoulder, I wanted to yank the thing off of her ear and crush it in my powerful jaws.

At one point, she actually took a call. She sat there at the table, completely ignoring her friend, and had a conversation through her flashing earpiece thing. Again, this should not have bothered me. I was not the one being ignored. Heck, I didn’t even know this woman. But I couldn’t help thinking that if someone had done that to me, I’d have pretended that I had to go make a call of my own, then I’d have run to my car and left the self-absorbed skank with the check.

OK, I really wouldn’t have done that. I’m far too much of a weenie. But I would have thought about it. Yeah, that’s right. I would have actually considered it. That’s how I roll.

I see earpieces everywhere these days. I went to a Chris Rock concert a few weeks ago, and a dude in the row in front of me wore his earpiece through the entire show. What’s the guy going to do, take a call right in the middle of a joke? If he did, I didn’t see him do it. I still had to put up with that stupid blinking blue light every fifteen seconds. I wouldn’t have noticed it, but they darkened the theater when the show started. In a dark theater, those flashing blue lights are like pleasantly colored lasers of hate.

The other day at the grocery store, I found myself in an aisle with two people wearing earpieces. Both of them were having conversations. There they were, inspecting the labels on canned goods, and talking into their earpieces. For a confusing moment, I thought one of them was talking to me, because he said “hey, buddy.” It took me a couple seconds to realize he had an earpiece on and was talking to it, not me. Then the guy gave me kind of a “mind your own business” look. Nice.

Don’t get me wrong. I think earpieces can be useful. I recently got one to use in my car, and I like it a lot. I can talk and keep both hands on the steering wheel. This is a good thing. When I get out of my car, however, I leave my earpiece behind. If I’m not driving, I usually am able to muster enough manual dexterity to actually hold a cell phone in my hand. I’m fairly certain this ability does not make me special.

I think it’s time that someone spoke up about this growing societal problem before it really gets out of hand. We’re already a nation of addicts, and I really don’t think any of us wants to see chapters of Earpieces Anonymous springing up in every city. If you’re an earpiece addict, consider this to be an intervention. Trust me when I tell you that this is for your own good. I know this because, well, I just do. Think of me as yer daddy on this topic.

Now listen up, because daddy is only going to go through this once.

First, you need to understand that when you use an earpiece in a public place, you look like a crazy person. I don’t mean a fun-crazy person like the Iron Sheik. I mean a crazy-crazy person like the guy on the corner with the aluminum-foil hat and a three-day-old salmon taped to his shoe.

People think you’re obnoxious. They make fun of you the moment you’re out of earshot. Yes, they make fun of you every single time. Yes, all of them. You’re the person wearing his underwear outside his pants. Yes, you are. Trust me.

Second, when we see you wearing an earpiece, we are not fooled into thinking you’re important. Important people do not wear earpieces at the grocery store on a Saturday afternoon. No, they don’t. Important people don’t feel a need to put their importance on display. People who try to look important never are, just as people who describe themselves in personal ads as “classy and intelligent” never are. Trust me. I’m yer daddy. I’m right.

Third, the earpiece does not make you look cool. Yes, we know that you probably paid $100 or more for it. No, we don’t care. Most of us own things that cost $100 or more. Heck, these days it costs $100 to buy a week’s worth of gas. You can’t buy a bowl of soup in Tijuana for $100 right now. The only guy impressed by $100 is the guy with the aluminum-foil hat, and he doesn’t care about your earpiece because he doesn’t know what year it is.

Fourth, and this one might be the hardest for you to swallow, it really is OK to not be accessible by phone sometimes. If your hands are busy holding grocery bags, it’s OK to let that call go to voice mail. Unless you are a doctor, nobody is going to die because you didn’t have your earpiece in. Even if you are a doctor, the chances are that the call is about a tee time. Your spouse can wait a few minutes to find out what you want for dinner. Your friend can wait to find out what you’re doing on Saturday.

I know, I know, the suspense of not knowing who’s calling, or what they want, or that it might be something really important, is a siren’s song you think you are powerless to resist. You’re wrong. Unless you’re 12 years old, you once led your life without a cell phone and without an earpiece. When you did, the world did not implode. No, it didn’t. Trust me. I’m yer daddy.

I’m sorry to have been so hard on you, but it’s for your own good. The first step to managing your addiction is to admit you have a problem. If you’re wearing an earpiece right now, while you’re reading this, you have a problem.

Yes, you do. Trust me.

And, you’re welcome.

Bob Rybarczyk (brybarczyk@sbcglobal.net <mailto:brybarczyk@sbcglobal.net> ) writes stuff. He is really glad he’s not running for President, but if elected, he will serve. Look for his first novel, “Acoustic Kitty,” ($15.95) at Amazon and other online booksellers.