Cell phones can suffer digit failure

by Beth Boswell Jacks

Cell phones? Uh huh, you’d better watch out! They can get you in a world of trouble.

First of all, do public chatters not realize how irritating they are to innocent by-standers? I admit I’ve talked on my cell phone (but rarely) in public places. I get around the temptation by leaving the phone in my car or, more often, hooked to a charger on my kitchen counter. I forget about it actually.

There’s nothing more wonderful than a cell phone in an emergency, but for my personal everyday walking around, the cell phone is stashed and “forgot about.”

Those gadgets can be dangerous.

I’ve seen sagging pants on too many teens – vibrations from the pulse of the cell phones glued to kids’ heads has obviously shaken their britches smack down to their knees. (I think it’s caused the girls’ sweaters to shrink also . . . not sure about that.)

And I also know cell phones are hazardous in an even more common way. Because the cell buttons are so teeny-tiny, “digit failure” is a real problem.

Oops! The finger doesn’t hit the OFF button and you’ve got trouble, brothers and sisters.

Hubby G-Man and I came home from church the other day and our telephone message light was blinking away. I punched.

Well, turns out, one of G-Man’s buddies had called him – but failed to turn off his cell phone when we didn’t answer. So for several minutes until our tape ended, we listened to the conversation of G-Man’s pal and his wife (my dear friend). I won’t say what they were discussing because I really don’t know – they were throwing a bunch of figures around and talking about how to cook his eggs; that’s about it.

I called back and got their answering machine, then told them their figures were much too low. I said I’d guess, oh, ummm, they should be talking in the area of several thousand dollars more.

Of course, they were confused when they heard my message. G-Man and I explained later.

“Now, wait a minute,” said G-Man’s buddy, “if you hear something like that and you know it’s not meant for you, you ought not listen.”

“Oh, I didn’t listen,” G-Man told him. “Beth did. She needed information for a column.”

They laughed, but hey! Here we are, right?

Nevermind, I’m always discreet.

For example: the following story has been totally altered – names and locations and identifying characteristics changed – to disguise people and places, but the basic story, unfortunately, is true.

One of my single friends, Gretta Greatlooks, had been dating a guy in Singapore but had decided this relationship was a no-go; she was in the process of trying to cool his ardor.

Out with some girlfriends one evening at a lovely Russian sushi spot in downtown Boise, Gretta was disturbed by the ringing of her cell phone. She fished it from her Dutch handbag and answered. You know who it was – HIM. So she talked a minute, but ended the conversation as quickly as possible because she was in this sushi place with lots of ears sitting around attached to headaches and she feels as I do about cell phone chatters in restaurants.

But, oh dear – she too didn’t hit the right button to terminate the connection. The cell phone lay on the table, squarely in front of her big mouth (that part is not altered and disguised).

The poor guy suffered for the next thirty minutes on his end, listening to my friend explain to her girlfriends why she’d been avoiding him like the plague.

Her explanation was not flattering. No, it wasn’t.

“Somebody,” she complained to her friends, “has got to give the man a wake-up call.”

Ring rrrrrrring! Hellooo!

He got the call, honey.

The moral of my cell phone tale is this: Hang up . . . or shut up!

Or both.