Assume the pose

Times column. Take Two. Yup, you read that right. This is my second stab at this week’s column. I don’t often “take two”. Perhaps I should do it more often. Overthinking a column can sometimes get a writer into deep do-do. But, here I am. Taking two.

We have become a rude, self-absorbed, media-obsessed, cellphone totin’ society. Oh, yes we have. This week’s rip comes from a trip taken in early spring. LOML and I were visiting our “second home” (crashing on the kid’s sofa) in British Columbia and we decided to take a romantic trip, side trip, to Harrison Hot Springs. The words “hot” and “springs” get me every time. What’s a trip to the springs without a romantic dinner for two, right? I agree. So, the first evening there we wandered over to a restaurant, known to dim the lights after seven in the evening, and settled in for a quiet, candlelit dinner. As we toasted our good fortune, I noticed other tables seemed to be bathed in a pale blue light. Not the standard golden of waxy candles. A young couple, at the table next to us, explained to the server, in heavily accented English, they were on their honeymoon. Over the course of the next 90 minutes, the lovebirds photographed (with their cellphones) every morsel of food on their plates while explaining to a couple of someones “on the lines” what exactly it was they were eating. A documentary, if you will. Everything from the salad to the schnitzel to the strudel was carefully described in a loud voice (often repeated several times to get the pronunciation correct) to people who might have been an ocean away. Needless to say, we decided to give up on the romance and turn the experience into a social studies lesson, with lots of Rhine wine. As LOML and I looked around the tiny place, we realized we were the only people sans cellphone. Mmmm. The food was great. The soft music was punctuated by the rumba-brrrring of incoming calls and the ensuing sharing conversations. And, the adventure in social studies was on.

As the evening moved along, it became acutely obvious to us, there just might be a generation of people who are not able to make any kind of progress through a day without sharing the experience with everyone on their contact list and backing up the conversations with photographic documenation. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all over the sharing of information, in fact, most of my professional life has been about just that, only not by cellphone. I just wonder if it’s possible for those folks to take one step in any direction without assuming the pose. The cellphone pose. Cellphone resting in the almost flat palm of one hand. Arm bent at elbow so that palm containing cellphone is approximately five inches from mid-chest. Thumb hovering over the teensy-weensy keyboard. That pose. In a day, I see dozens of people going through their daily routines with their hand in this position. It must be very “self-satisfying.” I can walk and chew gum, but I haven’t evolved into a text-exister.

I was once told, by a wise person and fabulous teacher, “The person in front of you is the most important person you’ll see today. Let them know you care and deal with that person first.” Wonder what she’d think about the new kinda person in front of us. I’m sure her Toni would droop.

theresa@wellingtontimes.ca