Ding!

My back pocket buzzes and it's as if a force beyond my control is guiding my hand to retrieve my cell phone.  An email from gymboree alerts me that there are only 3 hours left to cash in on my 40% off coupon... boring.  Unable to sit on my phone in the driver's seat of my car, I place it between my knees on vibrate so that I will feel it if it happens to go off.  On the counter inside of my house, I hit the middle button to illuminate the screen each time I pass it in case small red stars dot the corners of the mail icons indicating a new message. 

I watch at the park as mothers and fathers guide their index finger over the rectangular screen of their smart phones.  Some don't - they actually play with their children, pushing them on swings or holding a hand down a slide.  But there are always the few that sit on a bench completely entranced by whatever is on that little screen. 

My brother is 18 and a freshman at the University of Puget Sound.  Being nine years older than him, I left the house when he was starting the fourth grade and saw him sporadically over the next four years while I was completely consumed with college and myself.  Returning home more frequently over the last few years, I was able to see him more often... The only problem is, I was always competing with his cell phone, glued to one hand.  It was hard to have a conversation - or wait, it was almost impossible.  Buzzing, dinging, clicking and tapping were constantly in the background and good luck with getting any eye contact.  We'd have to scream at him to put his cell phone down just to get a simple "yes" or "no" from him about dinner.

I've noticed that a large number of kids across the street at Ballard High School (little bastards) walk around with one ear bud in an ear and the other hanging out, bouncing on their chests as they walk.  Why take the time to insert the ear bud at the first notice of an incoming call when you could just have it resting in there permanently?  But what are the odds that they are actually making calls... come on, nobody talks on the phone anymore.

Heaven forbid I leave my phone at home for a day.  My heart skips a beat when I hear the "battery low" warning beep and I'm without a charger.  I will drop everything I am doing if my phone is sitting across the room and it dings more than once.  The suspense is just too much!  I had a friend answer her ringing phone in the middle of my sentence without even a "hang on one sec, I have to get this."  Common manners and simple courtesies are hardly considered in this new world of hand held connectivity.

It all just seems to be happening so fast, I suppose.  New versions of phones and better buttons to send things faster and clearer.  I can't remember what it was like to be "unplugged."  Really, I can't!  I feel like I'm missing life because that little "ding" can act as a chainsaw cutting through the ties of the present, all of my attentione honed in on what everyone else is doing or saying... or baking or buying. 

New rule:  At least one day every week I am going to turn off my phone, computer, TV, and all other distractions so that I can be totally in the moment - MY moment, not someone else's moment who is sharing photos on facebook of a recent trip to Costa Rica.  The Costa Rican moment of someone else's only makes me jealous.