Cell phones, slush and annoying contractors with Nextels..

Cell phones, slush and annoying contractors with Nextels..
4 Jan 2010

Happy New Year to everyone.

Do you ever get the scary feeling when you don’t have your mobile phone? I swear, sometimes I’m on the verge of a panic attack when I don’t have mine. It’s like the world could well come to a horrific end during the next 19 minutes it takes me to run to the bank and get gas, and I would never know.

On the way home from a little post-holiday shopping for at the outlets in Maine this weekend, I realized I didn’t have my cell phone. So I turned around (I was already in NH) then drove back to the McDonalds where I found it laying in a pile of slush. Apparently LCD screens react to freezing water about the same way as Wes Welkers knee reacted to cutting on astro turf.

So I had to go a day without my phone…it was horrible.

What will happen to me if I can find out via Facebook that my sister is taking over Cuba in“mafia wars?” Or what if a Nigerian banker needs a trustworthy assistant to help him move millions of dollars? I have to know these things at all times! (Thank God, I’m not a twitter addict…how ever would I know about the darling little things my friend’s kids are doing at every minute of the day)

I guess my bigger question was, how did we survive before these things? When stuff used to be really important, we’d send it Fedex, or even “fax” it over. I remember growing up in the 80’s; my dad would make calls to our family friends (about 60 miles away) from the office after 8:00 because that’s when it was the cheapest. Maybe it’s because my family was uber cheap, but it was like he was using the red phone to call a foreign dictator. There was something dangerous about it.

Back then, if you wanted instant communication it meant only one thing. CB’s. That’s a big 10-4 good buddy. Yep, we had em in all our cars, and even the big “home base” antenna – it looked like a 50 foot tall umbrella frame on the roof of the house). We would use them whenever my dad would go away or if we were driving to the cape. I knew all the lingo…my favorite was a 10-100 (taking a dump) and even had secret channels we’d go to have “private” conversations (only anyone with an antenna could pick them up…)

Sometimes, I long for the days of codes and a little more secrecy. I guess today’s equivalent is the Nextel two way walkie-talkie phone. I think these are actually pretty good tools, but if you have one, can you explain one thing to me?

Why, oh why, do you feel the need to keep it on speaker phone and yell into it everywhere? I mean, you are allowed to pick the thing up and put it next to your ear, right? I believe the phone actually functions as a normal phone….you don’t always have to use it on speak mode.

When your on the job site, ok, it makes sense. Maybe even when you’re in home depot I can see it. But do you need to do it in front of me at Fenway? Or does everyone waiting in the bank line need to know that “…the a$$hole doing the plumbing F**ked everything up?” --- I don’t think so.

I think it would make a good Bud Light "Real men of genius commercial….”


Singer “REAL MEN OF GENIUS”

Voice Over: Bud Light salutes you, mister yelling into your next tell guy..

You provide your crew- and everyone with in a 400 foot radius – with directions of how to hang the dry wall

Singer: “Make sure you spackle the cracks!”

VO: Every time that phone beeps, you - and all of us waiting for coffee- know that Tony down at the jobsite, screwed something up again.

Singer: Keep the Backhoe off the gas lines!

Why pick up that phone, when you can just as easily yell into it and share your thoughts on the girl from last night with everyone at the DMV

Singer: I think I’ve got a cold sore…

VO: So here’s to you, oh sultan of the speaker phone

You really put the “Tell”, into Next Tel

Singer: …Mr. Screaming into your Next Tel Guy…


So, what did we learn?

-Blackberrys don’t float, nor do they do well in freezing slush
-My family was a bunch of rednecks with CB radios

-Dad misappropriated company resources to make long distance calls

-It seems that something in the genetics of super annoying guys with horrible accents and -

Winston-riddled voices precludes them from having a spec of self awareness

-If someone has a Nextel and you want to have a private conversation with them, you’re probably better off doing it on a CB