Stop Doing These Things....

What I'm about to say surprises even me because I love, love, love the iPhone. But here goes...

When you are standing in line in a store and the checker says, "Hello, did you find everything you were looking for?" put your cell phone away and answer her. Don't just keep talking to the person on the phone like what ever you were talking about was that important. I was eavesdropping. Trust me, it wasn't that important.

That was to the lady that I stood behind in Wal-mart a few days ago. You know who you are.

Now, to the two ladies standing in a certain building I was in a few days ago (I'm avoiding specifics a little...ok...a lot) texting like crazy and standing in the middle of the hallway so no one could get past: Did you really need to stand there like no one else was around and text your friends? You were smiling, so I can assume you weren't texting the police about some emergency, right? I heard a person try to talk to you and you never even looked up. You just mumbled and grunted and kept your thumb moving. You should stop. Only aliens would do that. But here on earth we don't do that...

Here is the general principle and we can all just apply it as needed:

Don't talk on your cell phone when you should be talking to or paying attention to someone else. And stop texting people when you're in the middle of stuff where you need to be paying attention to other people. If what ever you're talking or texting about is that big of a deal, walk into a little corner and take care of it. Then come back out into society where we talk to each other and make eye contact and act on other social cues, etc. You won't miss the Mother ship, don't worry.

I don't care if you talk on the phone while you are driving unless you cut me off. It is dumb and unsafe to do it...everyone knows that. So I'm not really talking about that. They highway patrol will probably take care of it for me. But at least stop making people feel bad because you can't put your phone down long enough to say, "Thanks", or "Please" or "You forgot to give me my receipt" or whatever.