You Got a Call, Bitch

Supposedly in a few months our Golden State will ban handheld phones while driving vehicles. I wonder, does this mean farmers can’t field calls while tractoring? What about in your driveway? Today you can’t have the keys in the ignition if your drunk and parked, because conditions are such that you might drive. I wonder if an active cell phone on the passenger seat without blue tooth technology is the same. Conditions are such that the driver could make an illegal call, so therefore this is illegal too. All too confusing if you ask me.

The classic bike-car crash case of an unattractive, distracted woman on a cell phone in a beat-up station wagon making a right on red turn that didn’t see the law-obeying, alert bicyclist -- this nearly occurred this morning on Franklin Blvd. What a bitch. I have mixed feelings about this new law, because I will be the first one to violate it. I make about two to three phone calls a year while driving and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna buy the stuff needed for hands free chatting and then gear-it-up every time I get in the car for the eventuality that I have to talk on the phone.

Just like more and more people are pretending to drive with a license and insurance, they will also likely only pretend to be using a hands-free phone. It seems to be an unenforceable law that only matters if it can be shown, after the fact, that an accident was partly attributed to the illegal use of a cell phone.

I think it’s just that I’ve got this terrible bias against cell phones. I find the ringing of one in a meeting or gathering horrifyingly distracting, and then more so when the offender has to field the call. And with a personal ringtone to boot! I would want mine, in the blackest rap voice you can imagine, say "You got a call comin' in on your cell phone, bitch, you got a call, bitch, a call, bitch."

And the day they’re allowed on airplanes, holy shit! I see it now...I’m in the middle seat on a Delta flight to Atlanta. The guy to the left of me is returning home, calling his wife to tell her she’s gonna get the shit beat out of her when he gets home because she served him a cold breakfast that morning and he lost the account because of it. The guy on the right has just left his new girlfriend in the terminal and they’re going back and forth saying “ You hang up...no, you hang up...no, you hang up first...”