Please enjoy the music while I write this column…
Katelyn Moore

There are a lot of things that modern technology has spawned that I'm a huge fan of: the Internet, microwave burritos, my iPod… but technology has taken a hammer to former etiquette rules when the cell phone was hatched.

In the beginning, they were "bag phones," behemoths that you HAD to leave in your car because they weighed around 300 pounds and had to be plugged in to your cigarette lighter to work. Gone are those days. Now even I have one of the new-fangled credit-card sized annoyances hooked on my belt until the sun goes down, and even after that it is always in reach. But even though I have one, cell phones are still the root of around 90% of my pet-peeves.

Nothing annoys me more than being in line behind someone at the grocery store and listening to them argue with their boyfriend/chat with their mother/signal aliens/whatever on their cell phone. I can't imagine how the person scanning their items feels. Cell phones have made it suddenly okay to completely ignore everyone around you to the point of utter rudeness.

Poor Emily Post is doing somersaults in her grave as we speak.

Even better than being able to pretend other people aren't there is the advent of ringtones. You can be sitting in a meeting and all of a sudden something under the table is playing "You are My Sunshine" at around 900 decibels. Who decided that phones shouldn't just ring anymore, anyway? Does anyone else miss the times when you weren't serenaded every time the person the next aisle over gets a phone call? And its always on the loudest setting, so while you're calmly reading the label on a can of peas, the person opposite you lets loose the opening chords of Clapton's "Layla," causing you to toss the can of peas into the air and injure poor bystanders in a fit of ringtoneinduced terror.

The Bluetooth attachment is another fun attachment that has completely redefined the social concept of people walking around talking to themselves. Now it's perfectly normal, because there's a small glowing mechanical capsule protruding from the ear canal of said Chatty Cathy. Wasn't there an episode of Star Trek a while back that showed ear-imbedded machinery as a mind-control device? The Bluetooth at least has a good point, because it keeps people from fiddling with their cell phones while they drive… right? Well, okay, maybe not, but that's what it was supposed to do, so it wasn't a bad idea starting out, and neither were cell phones, for that matter.

But please explain to me the concept of having music play in your ear when you call someone. Its great that you have a favorite song, but please, please don't make me listen to it when I have to call you about something important. I don't want to listen to the entirety of the Sesame Street theme song just to tell you that I left my favorite casserole dish at your house last week and I want it back.

And when I have to listen to the entire song just to get to the five-minute instructions on how to use your voice mail, it gets rather annoying. I just want to leave a message! Please just call me back! I promise that all you have to listen to is good oldfashioned ringing and my voicemail is after the tone.

Katelyn is the Senior Journalist at the Forest-Blade. She can be reached at katelyn@forest-blade.com or you can press 1 to leave a message.

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