Ten years ago if I were asked to name the four most significant technological developments that have altered and shaped the course of Mankind, I would have readily replied:
§ The wheel, electricity, the computer, and rolling paper.
After the passage of ten years, I would alter my list slightly, deleting the wheel and adding the cell phone.
Cell phones have all but eliminated the time and distance of communication and even made it possible to reach your party without dialing!
I recently heard a guy making a date for Friday night while using the conveniences of a public crapper. Now that’s progress!
Well, answer one question, please?
If the cell phone is so great-- I mean, one smart phone-- how come it gets lost all the time? I need an answer and I need it now!
Man, I have left this thing in bars, cars… on planes and trains… sent it to the laundry, dropped it in the toilet! I have even trained my dog to retrieve it, replacing his trusty Frisbee as his favorite go-fetch-it- thing. (Can he get cancer doing that?)
Yesterday I might have outdone myself! I had already lost “ Wrongway” (I call it “Wrongway” because no matter which direction I go, it goes the wrong way!) twice during the week; once in a bar – it loves bars- and once in a convenience store. In fact, it has spent so much time in convenience stores that I have learned some basic greetings in Punjabi, the most common language of Pakistan.
I thought I had exhausted all the possible hiding places of this clever device and, then, in kind of a “Remember the Alamo” epiphany, I remembered the trash.
I hurriedly grabbed my wife’s cell (we’re a two phone family) and dashed toward our community’s trash dumpster- that dreaded and vile thing!
I dialed my number 954-xxx-xxxx (for security reasons and threats of violence, you understand, right?) and, in just a few seconds I heard it… music to my ears… that lovely cacophonous sound of My Tone, a mixture of Hava Nagila and the Birthday Tune all in one. Life is great!
But wait! The Ring, My Ring, emanates from the confines of the trash receptacle and I am on the outside looking in with nary a way to scale its vile walls. Chagrin!
Quick reasoning suggested a ladder would solve my problem, so I retrieved our kitchen stepladder, mounted it to its top stair and leaped into an odiferous concoction of aromas that would challenge any great Chef’s abilities to duplicate.
Dial! Dial again and again… getting closer all the time. And then, alas and alack, I have found it…resting on last night’s Chinese take-out (Egg Foo
Yung, I believe) just to the right of someone’s old clothing. Eureka!
Just at my moment of elation, I could hear a human grunt and then a rattle-- perhaps some tin cans-- and then…Smack! Right in the face, a 33 gallon-sized bag of trash-- direct hit on me!
I let out with a Yelp! (Well, it was a four- lettered word, anyway.) And my Yelp was replied to with a surprised-like scream. I guess I did look silly standing in the middle of a dumpster, dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and wearing a Boston Red Sox baseball cap, clutching two cell phones. Talk about fetishes!
I did manage to placate the astonished women and calmly said:
“Sorry to stun you Miss. I was planning to come this weekend but the weather has been so nice… Well, you know what I mean.”
I don’t think that she did.
My tale of woe and wonderment would have ended here if it weren’t for that big truck!
If you want to try something difficult, try explaining to your wife why you need to be picked up at a local landfill!
Which brings up the subject of the fourth technological development that has altered the history of Mankind--rolling paper!
Well, maybe that’s how I got into this predicament in the first place.
We’ll save that for another day.
Billy Comerford
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