huh?

Lady sitting in a crowded waiting room of an after hours clinic last night talking on her cellphone........(and may i just add......LOUDLY!!!!!)

"Did you hear about Shirley's mom? She's was in a bad car accident. She's DEAD ..... (pause)....What? She didn't die? Are you sure she didn't die? I heard she did....... pause ......... oh, so when is she going to die?"


I left after that and went to sit in the sun in the parking lot while most of the people stuck in the waiting room, obviously feeling pretty darn crappy or they wouldn't be at an after hours clinic either cringed while trying to tune her out, or laughed out loud. I was laughing and shaking my head at the same time because it seems to happen all the time now......overhearing bizarre snippets of others lives. Cellphones are brutally rude and invasive in the wrong hands!

The problem with my choice to move out into the open was that many others were mingling about waiting their turn, openly conversing about their personal lives, oblivious to the fact that they were surrounded by strangers who really didn't want to hear about it. Not only that, the topics were borish......even some admissions to illegal drug use, and all of it peppered in foul language. You know, the big nasty word bombs, not the smaller fluffier disposable ones.

As my father would say, "he had a mouth on him like a ripped boot......." I always liked that saying........ it makes no sense, and yet it does. Who the hell wants a mouth on them like a ripped boot?? There were ripped boots all over the place. Why is it that men who talk like that, slipping swear words as often as they can into every single sentence uttered from their mouths, also like to hork spit generated from their phlegmy throats while adjusting their manhood at the same time?? What brilliant multi-taskers they are. Did I mention my 10 year old son was with me? Good thing we've let him watch a few Will Ferrell movies lately. Bad mommy............bad, bad mommy.......... I was actually more concerned about him listening to two men openly discuss their partying habits of snorting lines of cocaine like it was acceptable and dissing "the wife" comments than him hearing cuss words.

Where have our boundaries gone? Have they been erased? It seems so, and I blame this partially on Oprah and her ilk for encouraging the universal acceptance of spilling our stuff to anyone within earshot as a therapeutic primal purge rather than bad manners. Has it become a disturbed way of bonding or is it simply disrespectful of other's boundaries? Whatever it is, it's just plain rude.


Our society has been flipped on it's ear when it comes to communicative decorum. And what is so bizarrely contradictory is that we seem to be messing with both ends of the communication continuum. Either we are yapping away on our trusty cell phones (which btw have recently been identified as a cancer causing agent.....like what isn't??) or conversing loudly face to face with buddy fella in the middle of a department store, restaurant, waiting room, subway, grocery store, city bus, line-up, in the LOO for fecks sake.......... or we have unplugged the whole world and turned ourselves into walking internal boom boxes ignoring even the beautiful sounds around us. Its two side of self-absorption. Thinking of oneself first and foremost.



It's a purge or perish kind of existance, and quite frankly I find it disturbing. Either we have a fear of getting lost as a means of learning something about ourselves and need to be in touch with the people in our lives at all times and waking hours, or we float through existance in a blurred earphone zone, untouched by anyone or anything except what is blaring away.



Now before anyone thinks I'm some wingnut do-gooder with a phobia of technology, let me make it perfectly clear that i do see the functionality and FUNality side of it these lovely devices. I'd have them both and use them frequently if I had to commute great stretches everyday. I also love the openness of conversations which happen frequently in this part of the world. People have no trouble falling into a deeply felt conversation with a stranger. It happens everywhere if you want it to. And I guess that's the point. We should always maintain our choice to be a part of what is being discussed and not have it foisted upon us.



Control over who is allowed into our intimate boundaries is just plain healthy. Allowing someone whose pushy and needy to invade your privacy, or simply by their unaware actions demand your involvement isn't healthy whatsoever. Who I let into my own domain is my perogative, as it is for you. But I also believe in the imperativeness of remaining connected and in tune with the world around us too. Why would anyone sit on a beach plugged into Nirvana when in fact it could be absorbed by the sounds of the surf? Why would anyone go for a walk in the woods and not take it in with all of their senses? It makes NO sense.