|
Monday, April 13, 2009
Cellulite Nightmare
By Jeff Yeager
[The following dream began haunting me in my sleep shortly after I wrote an article suggesting that people might be able to save some money and simplify - and therefore improve - their lives, by giving up their cell phones. My naivety about the hell-storm of controversy that that suggestion would unleash stems from the simple fact that I'm 51-years old and have never owned a cell phone. And nothing awful has ever happened because of it. See Matt Lauer get on my case about cell phones in this recent interview:
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/29988677#29988677]
I had the nightmare again last night, the fifth time in as many days. It's always the same. The still of the night is suddenly shattered by a mob of angry strangers, emerging from the darkness and surrounding my house. Some are shouting: "Heretic!" "Idiot!" "Luddite!" Each carries a blazing torch in one hand and a small, silvery object in the other.
I can't quite make out what they're clutching so tightly, so pensively, in their other hand. Then I hear a phone ring. One of the torchbearers puts the object to his ear, and then I realize that everyone in the crowd has a cell phone.
Other phones begin to ring, and more and more people in the angry mob answer their cells and begin talking. I can't tell what they're saying. It sounds like gibberish, like crazy talk, total nonsense. It's like they're talking, but not listening; it's like the conversation is unreal, unnecessary.
Some of the phones play a tune when they ring... the theme from 2010 Space Odyssey... the Stone's Sympathy for the Devil... Pink Floyd's Money.
Finally all of the phones stop ringing and all of the conversations simultaneously stop. A delegation of five burly looking men is dispatched to my front door. They grab me and pull me out onto the porch, knocking me to the floor. Then they're on top of me, pinning my arms and legs, while the ringleader begins trying to undo my belt.
Suddenly I'm viewing the scene from above. Only now it's not me lying on the porch. I've morphed into a young Ned Beatty. And then I hear Dueling Banjos playing, from the movie Deliverance; but it's only the mob leader's cell phone ringing. He answers it, mumbles some more nonsense, and hangs up.
"Now stop fighting it!" he says to me as he finally finishes unbuckling my belt. "Do you hear me now?" he says, which brings a hearty snicker from the encroaching crowd.
"This is for your own good. You need this," he says as a he slides a nerdy-looking leatherette cell phone carrying case onto my belt. Inside the case is a cell phone, just like the one everybody in the crowd is carrying, complete with rollover minutes and a non-cancelable annual service contract.
"Just wait and see," he says, as his cohorts let me up from the floor. "This will totally change your life."
"But, but," I stammer, "That's what I'm afraid of! I don't want to change my life. I'm happy with my life just the way it is."
The leader shakes his head in disgust as he and the rest of the crowd descends back into the darkness. I hear them mumble as they go. "Loser!" "Nut job!" "Crazy man!"
As I stand alone on my front porch, the cell phone on my hip begins to ring. The tune it plays is instantaneously annoying, but it takes me a moment to recognize it.
"No!" I scream, only then realizing the full extent of the inhumanity which has been inflicted on me, "No! Please! Not Muskrat Love!"
# # #
posted by Jeff Yeager at 5:34 AM
15 Comments:
Previous Posts
- Giving Up Lint for Lent My passion for repurposi...
- Join the $4 a Gallon Green Savings Club I'm ofte...
- Simple Living Is Key to Complex Financial Times O...
- It's Easy Being Green (if you're cheap)
- Cheap Pride Sack of Courage
- Cheap Pride Sack of Courage
- Teach Your Children Well ... Or NOT
- Buy American! (Even if it costs more?)
- How to Spend Less on Yourself and Share More with ...
- Spring Fashion News Prompts Ultimate Cheapskate to...
 |
 |
I once wrote a blog article criticizing instant communication technologies and was savaged in a flood of negative comments. People essentially took the criticisms as attacks on their lifestyles. I was amazed at how virulent the comments were. Clearly, people take this stuff very seriously.
I am a person who has been trying to convince my spouse that I DON"T NEED A CELL PHONE! but he won't let me leave the house without it.... unfortunately, not leaving the house isn't a real option since I am the main shopper and the one who runs kids back and forth to appts and we are faithful church attenders...
I don't know HOW to get that 100$ leash off my neck..... every time I read you or carla emery talk about using letters (i would use email since the internet can't leave our house) to correspond when trying to get your savings up and your spending down.. i get all excited and say... this is it... i just won't use it for a few months and he'll cancel it... but.... it never happens... i use it, or he tells me my tactic won't work....
I am trying to look to an alternative web based phone provider (skype or something like it) so that i use the service i'm already paying for FOR FREE... but having no luck so far.
Love your book, did you know that there are 116 people on paperbackswap WAITING for a copy of YOUR book? your famous man!
your friendly neighborhood cheapskate wanna be
Hey - Thanks to you folks for commenting. That makes 3 of us.
I'm quite flattered about the demand for previously-read copies on my little book on paperbackswap. To me, that's better than having a New York Times best seller any day ... in fact, it might just be the NEW NYT best seller's list! Let's hope.
Stay Cheap!
-Jeff Yeager
The main reason I have a cellphone is just incase the school nurse has to call me because my kid is sick when I'm out digging thru the thrift stores. Otherwise I could live without it. I only pay $100 a year ($106 with taxes - I buy a $100 T-mobile-to-go 1,000 minute card which is good for one year and therefore don't have a monthly plan). So I don't mind spending $106 a year to know the school nurse or teacher isn't trying to get in touch with me during the day.
Oh and I just thought of something else. I like the camera feature on it so I can take pictures, like if I spot a cake wreck at the grocery store.
But I don't text and don't want to learn how to text. Nor do I care about ringtones yadda yadda.
Hey, I'm with you. I have a cell phone but only because works gives me one for free. I was unemployed for a while and didn't feel the urge to get my own. It was nice not having the stupid thing going off all the time. My wife didn't have one until a few months ago and that is a pay as you go phone. She rarely uses it and we don't have recurring monthly bills. We just buy the minutes we want. A couple of hours of time lasts her months.
The point is you can have a phone for emergency use, which is a legitimate concern depending on your situation, with out having the agree to a monthly contract. This allows you to control the expense instead of the cell phone company.
Great post....hahaha. No cell phones at our house and we have four children. I can always seem to get a hold of my husband and he seems to always get a hold of me.....Kids know our home phone number (17 bucks a month) I also worry about brain cancer. Not going to get it due to cell phones. I also look around at people with the ear pieces and think of a star trek new generation I once saw with a "drug" addiction that looked just like a cell phone ear piece!!
My husband & I don't have cell phones. I like being alone with my thoughts, reading on the train, basically spending quality time with myself when I'm alone. I work in the city, and it seems like everyone is enthralled with their phones. People use emergencies as justification for their cellphones, but I figure we somehow coped with emergencies before there were cellphones. I think that with a cellphone, you give up a lot more than you get.
Hi Jeff. You might be getting a few more of these comments since I recently referenced this article in my own MySpace blog. The first comment I had was a rebuke to me for not "respecting" the need of other people to be able to reach me whenever, wherever.
Whatever! :)
Let's keep fighting the good fight.
The world would be so much more peaceful if all the people endlessly talking on cell phones would just shut up. Noticeably, if you take their cell phones away and sit them down at a table, they don't have anything to say
Malcolm
P.S. Nancy sent me.
I hate cell phones. More accurately, I hate the way some people use cell phones. I have one, but it's also my ONLY phone. Why the hell would I want two? Also, like Chris said, it's beacause of my son. I'm a single mom. Enough said.
My pet peeves, though, that damn Blue Tooth and the CONSTANT TEXTER! (was texter even a word 20 years ago?)
NO ONE is important enough to have a Blue Tooth, in my opinion. And CONSTANT TEXTER should have both their thumbs broken.
Thanks for the comments. It's good to know I'm not alone. Cheap, yes, alone, no.
LOL, I have a pay-as-you go cell phone that Traget had on sale for $30 including free air time. No bells, no whistles, no texting, no photos; just a phone. I use it only when traveling (mostly to arrange with people who insist on having cell phones) and to make the odd long-distance call (I don't pay for a long distance carrier at home. Refills last me forever; can be as little as $30-$50 a YEAR. I don't admit to having this cell phone and don't give out its number unless needing to coordinate with said people who insist on calling cell phones! :)
I avoided cell phones until the day I discovered I could connect my PC to the internet thru one. Was paying $90 + long distance per month for a landline phone (with non-pub # fee) and fast DSL broadband. Cell gave me slower (like slow DSL) internet connection plus free long distance and a non-pub phone for $45/month. I disconnected the landline and DSL. Recently went with a full broadband smartphone with unlimited internet for $75/month and now find myself rarely needing to fire up the PC because I can do email, surf the web, download files, maintain websites, and watch youtube on the phone. I am writing this message on the phone. My electricity bill was $18 last month. I never use the phone next to my head or wear it. Either I use a wired headset or speakerphone when I use it to talk.
I figure there is an environmental benefit to cell phones too. We no longer need to send or maintain the miles of expensive copper wire needed to reach individual homes. Ham radio is also capable of packet technology so theoretically we could avoid grids for phone and internet.
The phone has also replaced my big stereo. Awesome room filling sound is available with my $99 2.1 Cambridge Sound System (with crossover subwoofer) that pushes 25 watts tops. The phone only needs 4 watts. A single cheap 15 watt solar panel might run them. and would easily run the phone alone using a wired stereo headset. I won't use bluetooth next to my body.
So us cheapskates may need to rethink our positions here.
I use a Tracfone, cost $10 plus $99 for a years worth of service and so many minutes. I do not give out the number to anyone and I leave it off unless I want to use it. Landlines and phone contracts have monthly taxes here in NY which are too high as it is. I only pay sales tax on the phone and card. My husband has a fancier Tracfone for work. We do use the feature that shows a name instead of a number when someone calls in, like MOM or JOE or BOSS, that way my husband knows if he should answer or wait and return call later from home, thus not using up the minutes.
I have both a land line and a cell phone -- and I'm retired. But before anyone takes a shout at me, let me explain.
I live in a Northern state that has VERY cold winters. My two sons wanted me to have one because I usually travel alone in my car. A cell phone could definitely be a life saver if a person is on the road in the Winter and has car trouble or an accident. One of my sons put me on his plan so the cost is only $15/month. I get pictures of my grandchildren sent to the phone, and being we're with the same carrier, my two year old granddaughter can even "talk" to me on the phone for as long as she wants to.
The plan includes long distance any where in the USA every evening after 7 p.m. until 6(?) a.m. (I think that's right) and every week-end.
The reason I also have a land line is because my 88 year old mother lives in the same small town as I. As a Depression era citizen, I know she would not call me on my cell phone because it would be a long distance call for her because my cell phone area code is different from hers. She needs my help occasionally, BUT I know she would struggle herself rather than spend the money on the long distance call (even though she can well afford it). She even refuses to have an answering machine. I've recently bundled the land line with my cable TV and internet so now the actual cost for the land line is only $10 compared to the $24 cost of having a separate carrier for the land line.
Sometimes this new technology keeps us, or our loved one, safer and that is exactly how I see my need for both types of services at this time in my life.